A review by omnibozo22
An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment by Patricia Fara

4.0

A bit wide-eyed, this brief description of the Enlightenment's process of understanding electricity includes just enough tech talk to make the concepts understandable, without shocking the reader with math or jargon. As magicians are well aware (at least those who read the history of magic) 18th century performers often included electrical demonstrations in their programs, as soon as new discoveries were published. Fara discusses several of those demonstrators, including some who went on to contribute to electrical theory.
Battles over theory and the meanings of experimental results raged as the basic process of scientific method was invented. Religion intruded, of course, as it still does, attempting to stifle material understanding.