The Invention of Air
Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 8:45PM 
After two false starts, I finally completed Steven Berlin Johnson’s The Invention of Air: A story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America
Two false starts not for length, it’s only 254 pages including index, but it has been a very busy year. I had interruptions.
The Invention of Air is the biography of Joseph Priestley, an enlightenment era intellectual who had a profound impact on the lives of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; the reigning American intellectuals among the founding fathers of the United States. Johnson is an excellent story teller who does a superb job of weaving the narrative of Priestley’s life into the tapestry of the revolution era British colonies, and shining a light on his influence upon the fledgling U.S. nation. First from across the pond, both as a friend and life-long pen-pal of Franklin’s; then as an author of international recognition who’s writing had a profound influence upon the thinking of Thomas Jefferson; and later in America, after fleeing British persecution, where he became a formidable figure — as an outspoken critic of the Adams administration — and close friend until death of Jefferson.
Priestley, a polymath, was an English theologian who denied the divinity of Christ, and believed that the concept of the trinity was a blasphemous corruption of Christian teaching, equating it to idolatry. Priestly set up the founding principles of the Unitarian Church in his seminal work, Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion. He was a pioneering electrician, inventor of carbonated water (soda-water), and the first published chemist to isolate Oxygen (O2); as well as a political philosopher and a lifelong educator. He, perhaps more than any of his peers, understood the political and theological implications of quickly advancing technology. His often quoted, “The English hierarchy has reason to tremble even at an air pump or an electrical machine,” should resonate with any learned person who has observed the impact of the internet on authoritarian regimes today. If early American history is of interest to you, the book is a must read.
Joseph Priestley, Steven Berlin Johnson, history in Book 