Trough the prism of the tumultuous life and brilliant intellect of Sir Christopher Wren, the multitalented architect of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, historian Lisa Jardine unfolds the vibrant, extraordinary emerging new world of late-seventeenth-century science and ideas.
The man behind the bold, imposing beauty of Saint Paul's was as remarkable as the monuments he has left us. Wren was a versatile genius who could have pursued a number of brilliant careers with equal virtuosity. A mathematical prodigy, an accomplished astronomer, a skillful anatomist, and a founder of the Royal Society, he eventually made a career in what he described disparagingly in later life as "Rubbish " -- architecture, and the design and construction of public buildings.
Wren was a major figure at a turning point in English history. He mapped moons and the trajectories of comets for kings; lived and worked under six monarchs; pursued astronomy and medicine during two civil wars; exercised his creativity through the English Commonwealth, the Great Fire, the Restoration. His royal employment out lasted abdication, Dutch invasion, and the eventual extinction of the Stuart dynasty.
Beyond the public achievements, Jardine explores Wren's personal motivations and passions. He was a sincere, intensely moral man with a remarkable capacity for friendship. His career was shaped by lasting associations forged during a turbulent boyhood and a lifelong loyalty to the memory of his father's master and benefactor, the "martyred king," Charles I.
Everything Wren undertook, he envisaged on a grander scale -- bigger, better, more enduring than anything that had gone before.

On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren

JARDINE, Lisa

Harpercollins

A biography of Sir Christopher Wren from one of Britains best writers and historiansThe figure of Sir Christopher Wren looms large in English national consciousness. The imposing beauty of St Paul's Cathedral stands forever for the nation's achievement its undamaged dome towering above the rubble of the Blitz in the Second World War a symbol of the London's indomitable fighting spirit.The man behind the work was as remarkable as the monuments he has left us. Lisa Jardine takes us deep into Wren's imagination and discovers the unique, exacting nature of his mind and the emerging new world of late-seventeenth-century science and ideas.Wren was a versatile genius who could have pursued a number of brilliant careers with equal virtuosity. A mathematical prodigy, an accomplished astronomer, a skilful anatomist, and a founder of The Royal Society, he eventually made a career in what he described in later life as 'Rubbish' architecture, and the design and construction of public buildings. But he remained committed to science. The Monument to the Great Fire was built with a subterranean laboratory; the south-west tower of St Paul's was used as a vertical telescope during construction both were designed to function as public monuments and as oversized scientific instruments.Wren was a major figure at a turning point in English history. He mapped moons and the trajectories of comets for kings; lived and worked under six monarchs; pursued astronomy and medicine through two civil wars, the English Commonwealth, the Great Fire, the Restoration, and the eventual extinction of the Stuart dynasty.Jardine explores also Wren's personal motivations and passions. A sincere man with a remarkable capacity for friendship, his career was shaped by lasting associations forged during a turbulent boyhood, and a lifelong loyalty to the memory of his father's master and benefactor, the 'martyred' king, Charles I

On a Grander Scale : The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren

Biographies & Memoirs

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

Jardine, Lisa. The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measued London. London, Harper Collins, 2003. 16 cm x 24 cm. IX, 422 pages. Original Hardcover with dustjacket in protective collector's - Mylar. Excellent condition. Robert Hooke FRS (18 July] 1635 - 3 March 1703) was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath. His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but eventually becoming ill and party to jealous intellectual disputes. These issues may have contributed to his relative historical obscurity. Hooke studied at Wadham College, Oxford during the Protectorate where he became one of a tightly knit group of ardent Royalists led by John Wilkins. Here he was employed as an assistant to Thomas Willis and to Robert Boyle, for whom he built the vacuum pumps used in Boyle's gas law experiments. He built some of the earliest Gregorian telescopes and observed the rotations of Mars and Jupiter. In 1665 he inspired the use of microscopes for scientific exploration with his book, Micrographia. Based on his microscopic observations of fossils, Hooke was an early proponent of biological evolution. He investigated the phenomenon of refraction, deducing the wave theory of light, and was the first to suggest that matter expands when heated and that air is made of small particles separated by relatively large distances. He performed pioneering work in the field of surveying and map-making and was involved in the work that led to the first modern plan-form map, though his plan for London on a grid system was rejected in favour of rebuilding along the existing routes. He also came near to an experimental proof that gravity follows an inverse square law, and hypothesised that such a relation governs the motions of the planets, an idea which ..

The Curious Life of Robert Hooke : The Man Who Measured London

Professionals & Academics

Harper-perennial

In Going Dutch, renowned writer Lisa Jardine tells the remarkable history of the relationship between England and Holland, two of Europe’s most important colonial powers at the dawn of the modern age. Jardine, the author of The Awful End of Prince William the Silent, demonstrates that England’s rise did not come at the expense of the Dutch as is commonly thought, but was actually a “handing on” of the baton of cultural and intellectual supremacy to a nation expanding in international power and influence.

Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory

History

Europe

On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren

Historical

Harper

The brilliant, largely forgotten maverick Robert Hooke was an engineer, surveyor, architect and inventor who was appointed London's Chief Surveyor after the Great Fire of 1666. Throughout the 1670s he worked tirelessly with his intimate friend Christopher Wren to rebuild London, personally designing many notable public and private buildings, including the Monument to the Fire. He was the first Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society, and the author and illustrator of Micrographia, a lavishly illustrated volume of fascinating engravings of natural phenomena as seen under the new microscope. He designed an early balance spring watch, was a virtuoso performer of public anatomical dissections of animals, and kept himself going with liberal doses of cannabis and "poppy water"(laudanum).
Hooke's personal diaries -- cryptically confessional as anything Pepys wrote -- record a life rich with melodrama. He came to London as a fatherless boy of thirteen to seek his fortune as a painter, rising by his wits to become an intellectual celebrity. He never married but formed a long-running illicit liaison with his niece. A dandy, boaster, workaholic, insomniac and inveterate socializer in London's most fashionable circles, Hooke had an irascible temper, and his passionate idealism proved fatal for his relationships with men of influence -- most notably Sir Isaac Newton, who, after one violent argument, wiped Hooke's name from the Royal Society records and destroyed his portrait.
In this lively and absorbing biography, Lisa Jardine at last does Hooke and his achievements justice. Illuminating London's critical role in the emergence of modern science, she rediscovers and decodes a great original thinker of indefatigable curiosity and imagination, a major figure in the seventeenth-century intellectual and scientific revolution.

The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London

Humor & Entertainment

The brilliant, largely forgotten maverick Robert Hooke was an engineer, surveyor, architect, and inventor who worked tirelessly with his intimate friend Christopher Wren to rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666.He was the first Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society, and his engravings of natural phenomena seen under the new microscope appeared in his masterpiece, the acclaimed Micrographia, one of the most influential volumes of the day.
But Hooke's irascible temper and his passionate idealism provedfatal for his relationships with important political figures, most notably Sir Isaac Newton: their quarrel is legendary. As a result, historical greatness eluded Robert Hooke. Now, eminent historian Lisa Jardine does this original thinker of indefatigable curiosity and imagination justice and allows him to take his place as a major figure in the seventeenth century intellectual and scientific revolution.

In Going Dutch, renowned writer Lisa Jardine tells the remarkable history of the relationship between England and Holland, two of Europe’s most important colonial powers at the dawn of the modern age. Jardine, the author of The Awful End of Prince William the Silent, demonstrates that England’s rise did not come at the expense of the Dutch as is commonly thought, but was actually a “handing on” of the baton of cultural and intellectual supremacy to a nation expanding in international power and influence.

Americas

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JARDINE, Lisa. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by JARDINE, Lisa

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JARDINE, Lisa. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren

On a Grander Scale : The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren

The Curious Life of Robert Hooke : The Man Who Measured London

The Curious Life of Robert Hooke : The Man Who Measured London

Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory

On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren

The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London

The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London

Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory

Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory