Weighing Fire

Michael Rand Hoare holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD from Cambridge University. He completed postdoctoral placements at the University of Washington and the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. Later visiting research appointments were in Paris, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, New Haven (Yale) and Ottawa (Carleton). A life-determining move was the offer of a physics lectureship at the now-defunct Bedford College in London, whose remarkable liberal-arts atmosphere led to a further distancing from science and mathematics towards literary and cultural history, lexicography and linguistics. The opportunity of early retirement in 1983 with the status of Reader Emeritus enabled a full-time freelance engagement with the cultural history of science and pursuit of a long-standing interest in the Chinese language at the University of Westminster. An appointment as Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) followed publications of Chinese teaching material and an ongoing project on the History of British–Taiwanese relations. He is a non-resident member of King’s College, Cambridge.

• Contents: Introduction – Voltaire and the Marquise: The Idyll at Cirey – Lomonosov: Giant without a Shadow – Algarotti: Newton and the Bolognese Enlightenment – Goethe: The Romantic Allure – Novalis: The Dark Jewel in the Crown – Goethe: The Mantle of Faust – Diderot: The Impertinent – Erasmus Darwin: Lunar Man – Lichtenberg: Göttingen and Wit – Coleridge: The Inward Querist – Ancients to Moderns: Enlightenment and Romance.