Reviews
Jean-Antoine Nollet went to Italy in 1749 to discredit a sensational electrical cure. Or did he? In reality, Paola Bertucci shows, he sought to garner the secrets of the silk industry for the French state. Bertucci's book does more than discover an episode of industrial espionage: it fundamentally changes our understanding of how the Enlightenment intersected with the Industrial Revolution.
In the Land of Marvels invites us to witness the natural wonders, scientific marvels, and technical know-how of eighteenth-century Italy through the eyes of the French experimenter Nollet. Bertucci is a perceptive and learned guide for this scientific voyage, raising important questions about the gap between the public presentation of knowledge and its less visible realities in an enlightened age.
Book Details
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Silk and Secrets
Chapter 2. Electricity, Enlightenment, and Deception
Chapter 3. Fabricated Controversy
Chapter 4. Natural Marvels, Instruments, and Stereotypes
Conc
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Silk and Secrets
Chapter 2. Electricity, Enlightenment, and Deception
Chapter 3. Fabricated Controversy
Chapter 4. Natural Marvels, Instruments, and Stereotypes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index