Entertainment for Angels (Icon Science): Electricity in the Enlightenment

Electricity was the scientific fashion of the Enlightenment, ‘an Entertainment for Angels, rather than for men’. Lecturers attracted huge audiences to marvel at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers and electrified boys. Flamboyant experimenters made chains of soldiers leap into the air, while wealthy women titillated their admirers with a sensational electric kiss. Enlightenment optimists predicted that this new-found power of nature would cure illnesses, improve crop production, even bring the dead back to life. This is the incredible story of the harnessing of nature by man – the beginnings of our technological age.