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Steven Johnson: The Invention of Air

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Steven Johnson: Coffee Fueled the Age of Enlightenment

02 min 27 sec

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Steven Johnson, author of The Invention of Air, links the rise of coffee house culture to the Age of Enlightenment because, before coffee replaced beer as the daytime drink of choice, "the entire culture basically was drunk all day long."

As a result, he says "the coffee house was a great hub of Enlightenment-era culture."
Joseph Priestley Invents Soda Water, Open Sources It

02 min 44 sec

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Steven Johnson, author of The Invention of Air, explains that Joseph Priestly, most famous for his discovery of oxygen, was also responsible for inventing carbonated water and freely shared his ideas in open source networks among the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Inventing Oxygen: Priestley Discovers Vegetation’s Role

04 min 22 sec

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Steven Johnson, author of The Invention of Air, describes how Joseph Priestley's kitchen sink experiment provided evidence that plants manufacture oxygen, data Ben Franklin used to develop a theory that plants and humans are part of a greater ecosystem.
Steven Johnson: Thomas Jefferson Pens Bible Mashup

03 min 07 sec

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Steven Johnson, author of The Invention of Air, credits Joseph Priestley's religious philosophy -- a balance of science and reason that valued morals over miracles -- as inspiration for Thomas Jefferson's "remix" of the Bible.
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51 min 10 sec

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There are 8 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

theknopfknows

Posted: 08.15.11, 04:07 PM

Priestlys family CALVINISTS Joseph was to be a preacher philosopher. 1749 He is very sick and left him with a stutter He could not shed and therefore NO PUBLIC PREACHING. Priestly stayed in THE LAB invented things later in 1774 He creates UNITARIANISM. HA HA PRIESTLY WAS GREAT HIS HOME ATTACKED TRY TO BURN IT DOWN ^ DID.HA MOVED TO DUTCH PENN. Jefferson in the Big House 1800. Priestly was anti/mason which upset George Washington. THANKS FORA TV CAHILL THOMAS WROTE A GROUP HISTORY CALLED Hinges of History.

phili

Posted: 05.22.10, 07:22 AM

like it seems to be very much like daniel boorstin and his triology -the discovers..

josealonsoleon

Posted: 04.17.09, 06:27 AM

What I find very impressive from writers such as Steven Johnson or for that matter Christopher Hitchens is the fact that they are not experts in the field they write, yet demonstrate a total passion and authoritative expertise that can only be achieved by having plunged head first into an ocean of data and historical research and thousands of hours of reading in order to deliver such enlightened point of views. I am not only impressed by this but thankful to them for having done it.

Trevar +
FORA.tv Staff

Posted: 03.10.09, 01:37 PM

This is one of my favorite FORA.tv programs so far this year. I love how Johnson is able to make history so entertaining, while also appealing to my inner geek. Who knew our nation's founders were early adopters of open source!?

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Trevar Mazza
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rocketdog

Posted: 02.04.09, 02:47 PM

Johnson's thing seems to be taking cracks at wrapping a number of big, seemingly unrelated historical, cultural, sociological, and scientific elements into much larger unifying ideas relating to human progress as a whole. Although his results are sometimes mixed, it's always interesting to watch him try. It looks like he's made a similar attempt with this book...I'll need to check it out.

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But words - words are not enough! - Klaus Kinski

raymond dash

Posted: 02.01.09, 03:51 AM

excellent