Newton bio review

[Dave Monroe]

See also ...

Fara, Patricia.  Newton: The Making of a Genius.
   New York: Columbia UP, 2002.

Isaac Newton has become an intellectual avatar for our
modern age, the man who, as even children know, was
inspired to codify nature's laws by watching an apple
fall from a tree. Yet Newton devoted much of his
energy to deciphering the mysteries of alchemy,
theology, and ancient chronology. How did a man who
was at first obscure to all but a few esoteric natural
philosophers and Cambridge scholars, was preoccupied
with investigations of millennial prophecies, and
spent decades as Master of the London Mint become
famous as the world's first great scientist? Patricia
Fara demonstrates that Newton's reputation,
surprisingly limited in his day, was carefully
cultivated by devoted followers so that Newton's
prestige became inseparable from the explosive growth
of science itself. 

Newton: The Making of Genius is not a conventional
biography of the man but a cultural history of the
interrelated origins of modern science, the concept of
genius, and the phenomenon of fame. Beginning with the
eighteenth century, when the word "scientist" had not
even been coined, Fara reveals how the rise of Isaac
Newton's status was inextricably linked to the
development of science. His very surname has acquired
brand-name-like associations with science, genius, and
Britishness -Apple Computers used it for an ill-fated
companion to the Mac, and Margaret Thatcher has his
image in her coat of arms. 

Fara argues that Newton's escalating fame was
intertwined with larger cultural changes: promoting
him posthumously as a scientific genius was
strategically useful for ambitious men who wanted to
advertise the power of science. Because his reputation
has been repeatedly reinterpreted, Newton has become
an iconic figure who exists in several forms. His
image has been so malleable, in fact, that we do not
even reliably know what he looked like. 

Newton's apotheosis was made possible by the consumer
revolution that swept through the Atlantic world in
the eighteenth century. His image adorned the walls,
china, and ornamental coinage of socially aspiring
British consumers seeking to identify themselves with
this very smart man. Traditional impulses to saint
worship were transformed into altogether new
phenomena: commercialized fame and scientific genius,
a secularized version of sanctity. Handsomely
illustrated and engagingly written, this is an
eye-opening history of the way Newton became a
cultural icon whose ideas spread throughout the world
and pervaded every aspect of life.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023112/0231128061.HTM

As well as ...

Fara, Patricia.  Sympathetic Attractions: Magnetic
   Practices, Beliefs, and Symbolsim in
   Eighteenth-Century England.  Princeton, NJ:
   Princeton UP, 1996.

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=59962&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0201&msg=64595&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0201&msg=64599&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0209&msg=70538&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0209&msg=70658&sort=date

Fara, Patricia.  An Entertainment for Angels:
   Electricity in the Enlightenment.
   Cambridge, UK/Lanham, MD: Icon/Totem, 2002.

http://www.iconbooks.co.uk/book.cfm?isbn=1-84046-348-1

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/dept/publications.html

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0209&msg=70763&sort=date

--- pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ...of interest to M&D readers:
> 
> Measuring an intellect as limitless as the universe 
>  Isaac Newton, James Gleick, Pantheon: 272 pp.,
> $22.95 ...

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