I thought about writing a serious, analytical review of this book but thought, nah, you guys don't want that. I love "historical fiction" (Will Thomas, Caleb Carr et al) and I really enjoyed this, especially the link between the founders' religious beliefs and how they co-existed with their scientific views. The video above is Johnson's recent appearance on The Colbert Show. Read "The Invention of Air", you'll enjoy it.
With Priestley, Johnson has now taken on a subject that is every bit as complex and multifaceted as any of the Quentin Tarantino films he so admires. Priestley was a scientist, true, and his meditations on the exhalations of gases from mint leaves and the curiosities of phlogiston and fixed air, his discoveries of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, ammonia gas—and oxygen, most importantly—and his relationship with his French rival Lavoisier have been the stuff of schoolroom chemistry lessons for more than two centuries. But it is his politically liberal and spiritually dissenting views that underpin the story that Johnson chooses to tell—views that led in 1794 to Priestley, whose house in Birmingham had been sacked by rioters, emigrating to America, thereby becoming the first great scientist-exile, seeking safe harbour in America after being persecuted for his religious and political beliefs at home.
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