Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.80 (724 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1469626934 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 416 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-01-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
One of Our Many Unknown Heroes This biography does two things very well: 1) It gives us a believable window into typical lives in the years between the American revolution and civil wars, and 2) It brings to light an individual that is not well known today but still of significance to all of us for multiple reasons.Starting with category two, I hope this is a new genre of biography: less known figures that make up the fabric of our times by contributing key practices and principles, without necessarily being political lights, yet being bright enough to illuminate the communities they inhabit. Most of us have no idea who Nathanie. no one has ever thought that this might be a useful question--this is a must read Alovely read, meticulously researched and important. For any one interested in how ideas and mathematics of navigation and business might fit together--ok, no one has ever thought that this might be a useful question--this is a must read. An intellectual biography with a difference.
In this engagingly written biography, Tamara Plakins Thornton delves into the life and work of Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), a man Thomas Jefferson once called a "meteor in the hemisphere." Bowditch was a mathematician, astronomer, navigator, seafarer, and business executive whose Enlightenment-inspired perspectives shaped nineteenth-century capitalism while transforming American life more broadly. Enthralled with the precision and certainty of numbers and the unerring regularity of the physical universe, Bowditch operated and represented some of New England's most powerful institutions—from financial corporations to Harvard College—as clockwork mechanisms. By examining Bowditch's pathbreaking approaches to institutions, as well as the political and social controversies they provoked, Thornton's biography sheds new light on the rise of capitalism, American science, and social elites in the early republic.Fleshing out the multiple careers of Nat
. Tamara Plakins Thornton is professor of history at the State University of New York, Buffalo
Readers of early American history will find a rich story that moves between New England high society and the founding of the natural sciences.--Library JournalShows Nathaniel Bowditch as a business innovator. and is a portrait of Salem during its golden age.--Salem News. This recommended biography rediscovers an eccentric who was key in improving several emerging industries