Invention of Clouds

A tantalizing mixture of biography, history, and science. The Invention of Clouds takes as its focus a specific scientific advance of the early nineteenth century, but it also addresses other issues of the day, such as culture, religion, aesthetics, literature etc. At the time such things weren't divided into separate disciplines, a mentality that is reflected by the book itself. It tells the story of a shy young Quaker, Luke Howard, and his pioneering work to define what had hitherto been random and unknowable structures - clouds. Howard was catapulted to fame in December 1802 when he named the clouds, a defining point in natural history and meteorology. His poetic names and groundbreaking work made him internationally famous. He became a cult figure for Romantics like Shelley and Goethe. His work is still the basis of modern meteorology, but he himself has been overlooked. In this book Hamblyn means to restore both him, his cultural context and the science he loved, to life.