The Invention of Air: An Experiment, a Journey, a New Country, and the Amazing Force of Scientific Discovery

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), remembered in Britain for radical politics and theology as well as his discovery of oxygen, spent his last decade in the United States, where his camaraderie with Franklin and Jefferson helped build the new country and establish transatlantic cooperation. In this 'biography of one man's ideas' Johnson reflects on a thinker who epitomized the creative power that comes from crossing intellectual boundaries.