Bloomsbury Home
You must sign in to add this item to your wishlist. Please sign in or create an account
Description
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
For over two thousand years magnets have inspired tales of myth, magic, exploration, science, and art. From the physical to the metaphorical, our language is littered with magnetic allusions: magnetic personalities, animal magnetism, mesmerism, and magnetic attraction. We take them for granted yet magnets are essential to our existence--as important as gravity--and to our survival on this planet and in this universe.
Eva Barbarossa's Magnet weaves together stories of ancient and modern wonders, of discovery and creation, of madness and desire, of beauty and awe, taking us from the spectacle of the aurora borealis to the disastrous searches for the North Pole.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Table of Contents
1. Birth In which humans find a stone with magical properties.
2. Earth In which we discover we live on an ancient magnet.
3. Home In which we use magnets to find our way.
4. Alignment In which man and beast align to the magnetic fields.
5. North In which we hunt for polar magnets.
6. Health In which we believe magnets harm and heal.
7. Transcendence In which magnetic fluids provide hope.
8. Tricks In which we use magnets to make trouble.
9. Toys In which we find magnets for play and pedagogy.
10. Technology In which everything needs a magnet.
Afterword In which I do not eat more magnets.
Acknowledgements
Selected sources
Notes
Index
Product details

Published | 19 Sep 2019 |
---|---|
Format | Ebook (PDF) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 136 |
ISBN | 9781501348778 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
Series | Object Lessons |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
-
Eva Barbarossa delights in details and shows how much fun technology can be when science appears to be magic.
Mark Kurlansky, author of Paper: Paging Through History (2016), Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas (2018), and Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate (forthcoming 2019)
-
In this delightful and engaging account, Eva Barbarossa shows us how our attraction to magnets is just as much part of culture as it is science--and has been for millennia. Magnet brings together everything from magic and mystery to mesmerism and MRIs as Barbarossa unpacks the meaning of a magnet's pull. Magnet is a must read.
Lydia Pyne, author of Bookshelf (2016) and Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff (forthcoming 2019)

ONLINE RESOURCES
Bloomsbury Collections
This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.