Overview

This is a biography of the Genevese scientist who literally turned on the lights at the beginning of the Enlightenment to illuminate the Industrial Revolution. Featuring 53 colour plates and 106 black-and-white illustrations, the author provides a record of how Argand advanced Western civilization. Among his many inventions, Ami Argand developed such a superior method of distillation that Louis XVI named him superintendent of the distilleries of France. With the Montgolfier brothers, he launched the world's first hot-air balloon. And dwarfing his other accomplishments, he revolutionized lighting for everyone.

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9780809322787

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As a collector of early lighting instruments, John J. Wolfe has served as a consultant on and a contributor to the chapter on lighting in the French Ministry of Culture’s encyclopedia Les Objets Civil Domestiques. He was a lighting consultant for and a contributor to the restoration of the Matthew Boulton eighteenth-century home in Soho, Birmingham, England, and he assisted the Marie of Versoix, Switzerland, in the restoration of the collection of original Argand manufactured products. Wolfe is a founding member of the Historic Lighting Club of Great Britain and the author of numerous articles for their publication as well as for the Rushlight Club of the United States. He frequently lectures on Ami Argand’s historic contribution to lighting in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. He resides in Normandy, France.

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