Scientific culture was one of the defining characteristics of the English Enlightenment. The latest discoveries were debated in homes, institutions and towns around the country. But how did the dissemination of scientific knowledge vary with geographical location? What were the differing influences in town and country and from region to region? Enlightenment, Modernity and Science provides the first full length study of the geographies of Georgian scientific culture in England. The author takes the reader on a tour of the principal arenas in which scientific ideas were disseminated, including home, town and countryside, to show how cultures of science and knowledge varied across the Georgian landscape. Taking in key figures such as Erasmus Darwin, Abraham Bennett, and Joseph Priestley along the way, it is a work that sheds important light on the complex geographies of Georgian English scientific culture.

Scientific culture was one of the defining characteristics of the English Enlightenment. The latest discoveries were debated in homes, institutions and towns around the country. But how did the dissemination of scientific knowledge vary with geographical location? What were the differing influences in town and country and from region to region? Enlightenment, Modernity and Science provides the first full length study of the geographies of Georgian scientific culture in England. The author takes the reader on a tour of the principal arenas in which scientific ideas were disseminated, including home, town and countryside, to show how cultures of science and knowledge varied across the Georgian landscape. Taking in key figures such as Erasmus Darwin, Abraham Bennett, and Joseph Priestley along the way, it is a work that sheds important light on the complex geographies of Georgian English scientific culture.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

This book is a general history of eighteenth-century developments in physical and life sciences.

Enriched by the methods and insights of social history, the history of mentalites, linguistics, anthropology, literary theory, and art history, intellectual and cultural history are experiencing a renewed vitality. The far-ranging essays in this volume, by an internationally distinguished group of scholars, represent a generous sampling of these new studies."

The essays in this volume consider the interplay of science and spectacle in eighteenth-century Europe, describing the variety of public demonstrations of science in sites ranging from academies and laboratories to shops and streets.

The fundamental purpose of the soul is to grow and expand, but if we all just keep growing and expanding without direction, the universe will continue to explode into greater chaos than it already has. Our unifying direction must be our own personal growth. We are capable of wielding powerful forces of light and guarding our galaxy against the forces of lower vibrations. To grow into this power, we must look within ourselves and cultivate love. The New Science of Enlightenment focuses on removing all that is in the way of becoming such a being of light and love. Using the Kundalini Karma System, it offers a modern-day approach to building an abundant, peaceful, and happy existence, helping you learn to navigate the world of spirit and matter simultaneously. You can attain your goals, understand the true meaning behind the events of your life, overcome the challenges that come your way, and triumph as you take control of your destiny. Become an enlightened and powerful being in the modern world and live a truly magical existence as a modern mystic on your road to God. This guide explores ways to harness the power of your Kundalini energy to get the life you want, allowing you to end the cycle of reincarnation and return to the mind of God.