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Scientific Americans
- Invention, Technology, and National Identity
- Narrated by: Lauren Pedersen
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
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Scientific Americans
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Publisher's summary
In Scientific Americans, Susan Branson explores the place of science and technology in American efforts to achieve cultural independence from Europe and America's nation building in the early republic and antebellum eras. This engaging tour of scientific education and practices among ordinary citizens charts the development of nationalism and national identity alongside roads, rails, and machines.
Scientific Americans shows how informal scientific education provided by almanacs, public lectures, and demonstrations, along with the financial encouragement of early scientific societies, generated an enthusiasm for the application of science and technology to civic, commercial, and domestic improvements. Not only that: Americans were excited, awed, and intrigued with the practicality of inventions.
Bringing together scientific research and popular wonder, Branson charts how everything from mechanical clocks to steam engines informed the creation and expansion of the American nation. From the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations to the fate of the Amistad captives, Scientific Americans shows how the promotion and celebration of discoveries, inventions, and technologies articulated Americans' earliest ambitions, as well as prejudices, throughout the first American century.
The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"A delightful tour of the technological marvels of the nineteenth century...a wise and lively book." (Gregory Nobles, author of John James Audubon)
"Entertaining and energetic." (Cynthia A. Kierner, author of Inventing Disaster)
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What a time!
- By BK on 06-18-19
By: Robert Morrison
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Tesla vs Edison
- A Captivating Guide to the War of the Currents and the Life of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4 out of 5 stars 28
Human history has seen many surprising and profound turning points. The ways that humans learned to use raw materials to create activity and resources set the stage for the most compelling and life-altering phase of the modern era, the Industrial Revolution. Born during this time on different continents but connected by similar interests, two men indelibly marked their generation and those that followed with their genius and foresight. This audiobook covers the war of currents and the individual lives of Tesla and Edison.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Arduous
- By Hasbro on 10-22-18
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The Sun and the Moon
- Hoaxers, Showmen, and Lunar Man-Bats in 19th-Century New York
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful and surprisingly true story of how a series of articles in the Sun newspaper in 1835 convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. Purporting to reveal discoveries of a famous British astronomer, the series described such moon life as unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and four-foot-tall flying man-bats. It quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era.
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3 out of 5 stars
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some very good some very bad
- By peter on 10-30-10
By: Matthew Goodman
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Knowing What We Know
- The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By reader on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
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How the Scots Invented the Modern World
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 465
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 415
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 416
Who formed the first literate society? Who invented our modern ideas of democracy and free market capitalism? The Scots. As historian and author Arthur Herman reveals, in the 18th and 19th centuries Scotland made crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature, education, medicine, commerce, and politics - contributions that have formed and nurtured the modern West ever since. This book is not just about Scotland: it is an exciting account of the origins of the modern world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eagerly Awaited Audiobook
- By Lulu on 09-01-16
By: Arthur Herman
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The Age of Edison
- Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America
- By: Ernest Freeberg
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 63
The late 19th century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the light bulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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great book
- By kyle on 03-10-16
By: Ernest Freeberg
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The Image, 50th Anniversary Edition
- A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
- By: Daniel J. Boorstin, Douglas Rushkoff - afterword
- Narrated by: Timothy Danko
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of "pseudo-events" - events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported - and the contemporary definition of celebrity as "a person who is known for his well-knownness". Since then Daniel J. Boorstin's prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any listeners who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Boorstin’s deep Conservative mindset reaches through every example in this book.
- By Christine on 10-12-20
By: Daniel J. Boorstin, and others
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Marx's General
- The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels
- By: Tristram Hunt
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Friedrich Engels is one of the most intriguing and contradictory figures of the 19th century. Born to a prosperous Prussian mercantile family, he spent his life working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, and enjoying the comfortable upper-middle-class existence of a Victorian gentleman.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not many choices here anyways.
- By Prof. Neil Larsen on 02-16-13
By: Tristram Hunt
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City of the Century
- The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900. Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A STORY THAT TRIES TOO HARD....AND FAILS
- By The Louligan on 02-01-15
By: Donald L. Miller
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1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War
- By: Charles Emerson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4 out of 5 stars 105
Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features last summers in grand aristocratic residences or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of revolution, violence in the Balkans.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good book ruined by bad read
- By GANESHi on 08-02-13
By: Charles Emerson
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Young Benjamin Franklin
- The Birth of Ingenuity
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of 41, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Book but LOTS of Names
- By Tim on 10-31-19
By: Nick Bunker
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The Invention of Air
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 302
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 168
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Story4 out of 5 stars 170
Best-selling author Steven Johnson recounts - in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion - the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America's Founding Fathers. The Invention of Air is a title of world-changing ideas wrapped around a compelling narrative, a story of genius and violence and friendship in the midst of sweeping historical change that provokes us to recast our understanding of the Founding Fathers.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good scientific history
- By Roger on 05-03-10
By: Steven Johnson
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Foundation
- The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors: The History of England, Book 1
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 827
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 753
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 748
In Foundation the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past - a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Most Annoying Narrator EVER
- By JudieBee on 12-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
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A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
- By: Michael Paterson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4 out of 5 stars 86
The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Brief, But Insightful
- By Troy on 07-17-13
By: Michael Paterson
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The American Spirit
- Who We Are and What We Stand For
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,277
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,135
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,128
Over the course of his distinguished career, David McCullough has spoken before Congress, colleges and universities, historical societies, and other esteemed institutions. Now, at a time of self-reflection in America following a bitter election campaign that has left the country divided, McCullough has collected some of his most important speeches in a brief volume designed to identify important principles and characteristics that are particularly American.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Our New "OLD MAN ELOQUENT" Rides Again
- By Ray on 04-21-17
By: David McCullough
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Turner
- The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner
- By: Franny Moyle
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
J. M. W. Turner is one of the most important figures in Western art, and his visionary work paved the way for a revolution in landscape painting. Over the course of his lifetime, Turner strove to liberate painting from an antiquated system of patronage. Bringing a new level of expression and color to his canvases, he paved the way for the modern artist.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Balanced biography of a complex artist
- By Thomas S. on 05-05-17
By: Franny Moyle