Overview

The materials in this volume cover the works of the natural philosophers, mathematicians, engineers, and entertainers for whom electricity became a vessel to say new things about energy and create a new means of generating motive force. The papers, books, and experiments explore the ways in which electricity transforms from a force of nature into a source of energy. Accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, this collection will be of great interest to students and scholars of the History of Science.

Full Product Details

Author:   Nathan Kapoor
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.620kg
ISBN:  

9781032281674

ISBN 10:   1032281677
Pages:   220
Publication Date:   22 December 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Volume 1: Electric Power Imagined Series Preface General Introduction Volume 1: Introduction Part 1. Anxiety 1. Charles Babbage, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on some of its Causes, (London: 1830), pp. 14-17 2. “What Will He Grow To?”, Punch, June 25, 1881 3. William Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-Mines (London: MacMillan and Co., 1865), pp. 138-145 Part 2. Imagining Electricity 4. John Bywater, “Historical Electricity”, from An Essay on the History, Practice, and Theory, of Electricity (London: J. Johnson and Co., 1810), pp. 1-22 5. Erasmus Darwin, “Progress of the Mind, Canto III”, from The Temple of Nature or the Origin of Society (London: Jones and Company, 1825), pp. 33-34 6. “Electricity”, Saturday Magazine 6: 169, February 21, 1835, p. 68 7. Michael Angelo Garvey, The Silent Revolution, Or, The Future Effects of Steam and Electricity Upon the Condition of Mankind, (London: William and Frederich G. Cash, 1852), pp. 1-13 8. “Science”, The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, January 1856, pp. 254-271 9. F. C. Webb, “Electricity and the Future”, ST. James Magazine, January 1882, pp. 97-102 10. William Crookes, “Electricity in Relationship to Science”, Popular Science Monthly 40, February 1892 11. Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution (London: MacMillan and Co., 1894), pp. 1-7 12. “The Universality of Electricity”, Punch, 1858, October 23, p. 165 13. “Prometheus Unbound: Science in Olympus,” Punch Magazine, December 9, 1878. 14. “Telectroscopy”, The Electrical Engineer, March 25, 1898, p. 354 Part 3. Experiments 15. Alexander Volta to Joseph Banks, “On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds”, The Philosophical Magazine, September 1800, pp. 289-311. 16. J. C. Robertson ed., “Mr. Bain’s Electro Magnetic Inventions”, The Mechanics Magazine 1041, July 22, 1843, pp. 64-79 17. Andrew Crosse, “On the Production of Insects by Voltaic Electricity” from a letter from Richard Phillips to William Sturgeon, The Annals of Electricity , Magnetism, and Chemistry 1, April 1837, pp. 242-244 18. Anon. Endless Amusement: a collection of nearly 400 entertaining experiments in various branches of science (Thomas Boys, Ludgate-Hill: London, 1825), pp. 88-89, 100 19. Michael Faraday, “On Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter”, a letter to Richard Taylor, Experimental Researches in Electricity vol.2 (London: Richard and John Edward Taylor, 1844), pp. 284-293 20. Charles Wheatstone letter to Alexander Bain, June 13, 1842, in An Account of Some Remarkable Applications of Electric Fluid to the Useful Arts (London: Chapman and Hall, 1843), pp. 116-121 21. Hippolyte Fontaine, “Industrial Applications”, in Electric Lighting: A Practical Treatise, Paget Higgs, trans., (London: E. & F. N. Spon., 1878), 103-125 22. Charles Wheatstone, “On the Augmentation of the Power of a Magnet by the Reaction thereon of Currents Induced by the Magnet Itself”, Proceedings of the Royal Society 15, February 14, 1867, pp. 367-372 23. Maxwell James Clerk, “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 155, 1865, pp. 459–466 24. Gisbert Kapp, “Aron Meter”, The Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review, February 7, 1890, pp. 158-159. Part 4. Self-Reflection-Retrospection “Looking” 25. Anon., “Priority”, The Electrician May 18, 1894, pp. 76-77 Index

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Author Information

Dr. Nathan Kapoor is an Affiliate Professor of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Department History at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, MI, USA. He is a scholar of nineteenth and twentieth century technologies of electrification, with a specialisation in the history of British electrification at home and in its colonies, most especially New Zealand.

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