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“In this big two-hearted river of a book, the twin energies of scientific curiosity and poetic invention pulsate on every page.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“[An] amazingly ambitious, buoyant new fusion of history, art, science, philosophy, and biography…Holmes’ excitement at fusing long-familiar events and personages into something startlingly new is not unlike the exuberance of the age that animates his groundbreaking book.”
— New York Times
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“Holmes’ enthralling book itself exemplifies those qualities fostered by a scientific culture: the sense of individual wonder, the power of hope, and the vivid but questing belief in a future for the globe.”
— Washington Post
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“Holmes is certainly the man to undertake this intellectual salvage operation…Ambitious…Eloquent.”
— Wall Street Journal
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“A new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigorating, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful.”
— Guardian
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“What’s superlative about The Age of Wonder is that Holmes, author of vivid biographies of Shelley and Coleridge, takes the air out of the terms ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’ and reveals the ways in which the artists were as enveloped in science as the men and women in the labs around them. In a harmony of scientific and artistic sensibilities, he shows, the Romantics tapped the marvels of nature and sounded the infinite benefits of science. It’s a song, if we can hear it, that can transform us today.”
— Salon
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“If, like me, you didn’t study much science after high school, this absorbing narrative will make you appreciate the gravity of your mistake…Reading it made we want to do college over, this time as a history of science major.”
— Slate, Best Books of 2009
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“Richard Holmes—who is almost unfairly gifted both as a writer of living, luminous prose and as a tireless researcher—braids Herschel’s story together with a dozen others to create the most joyful, exciting book of the year.”
— Time, The Top 10 Everything of 2009
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“It was a singular time, and this is a singular book.”
— Fortune
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“The Age of Wonder is the long-awaited fermentation of the author’s knowledge of the Romantic poets and his lifelong fascination with science.”
— Economist
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“For Holmes to bring those people back to life is a great achievement…This is the finest history of science book I’ve come across.”
— Physics Today
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“Holmes pursues his many-chambered nautilus of a tale with energy and great rigor, unearthing many lives and assembling remnant shards of biography, history, science, and literary criticism.”
— Christian Science Monitor
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“Rich in human foibles and thrills.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“Captivating…An engrossing portrait of scientists as passionate adventurers, boldly laying claim to the intellectual leadership of society.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)