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You are here: Home / Books / Home Page Books / Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment

Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment

February 2, 2014

Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment  by Tom Shachtman C-Span’s taping of lecture about this book at the New York Public Library

The book is a Featured Alternate for the History Book Club, Military Book Club, Scientific American Book Club, and Book-of-the-Month Club 2.

Adapted excerpt: George Washington, the First Vaxxer  at The Daily Beast

Praise for Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries

“A fascinating and unique look at the familiar history of the founding of the United States through the hyperfocused lens of scientific advancement.” – Library Journal

“An intriguing survey of science’s influence on the Founders.”   — Booklist

“Makes a strong case for the importance of science and technology in the creation of the United States …. A well-researched, lively entry into the current debate about the role of science in a democracy.” — Kirkus Reviews

In this lively history … Shachtman makes an ingenious and convincing case that “science-based thoughts and actions were critical to the nation’s birth and early health—far more so than were religious doctrine or economic considerations.” — Publishers Weekly

“We might hear as children about Ben Franklin with his kite and key in the thunderstorm, but this lively and learned book gives us the grown-up view of the Founders and their fascination with things scientific. Employing a large cast of colonial characters–Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and other famous figures of the era, but also lesser-known thinkers and tinkerers–Tom Shachtman makes a compelling case that the American Revolution became a movement not only for political independence, but for scientific independence as well. Indeed, Shachtman shows us that the two can hardly be considered separable.” –Greg Nobles, Professor of History, Georgia Institute of Technology, and co-author of Whose American Revolution Was It?

“This splendid book tells the eye-opening story of America’s founding generation as first-class scientists. We know how they created the government of the United States. Here we learn much more – and what a story it is!” –Lee Dembart, former science editor and science book reviewer, Los Angeles Times

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Filed Under: Home Page Books

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New for 2023

Publication of ECHOES, OR THE INSISTENCE OF MEMORY, August 2023. Pre-orders available on Amazon and Madville Publishing

Manuscript evaluation and editing for individual students based on my extensive publication history and many years teaching at major university writing programs.

Fees and schedules available upon request.  Payment by Paypal or check…

Published in 2020: THE MEMOIR OF THE MINOTAUR, a novel, from Madville Publishing; and THE FOUNDING FORTUNES: HOW THE WEALTHY PAID FOR AND PROFITED FROM AMERICA’S REVOLUTION, from St. Martin’s Press.

Podcast about THE FOUNDING FORTUNES with Walter Woodward, State Historian for Connecticut

Digital-Only Publications

The first volumes in my historical novel series, The Eagle’s Claw, about a secret, private organization that undertakes tasks for the President – some illegal, some scandalous, and all extraordinary — that the government cannot do but that need doing.

“The Pirate of Lake Erie,”

and
“The Perilous Letter of the Apalachicola.”

… and the non-fiction tale, The Commies, the Jewish Mob, the Union and My Grandfather: The Fur-Worker Wars of the 1920s.

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About Tom


Photo (c) by Anne Day

Hi, I’m Tom Shachtman, author, filmmaker and educator. I’ve written forty books, mostly for mainstream publishers, as well as television documentaries seen on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and other channels, and lectured at universities from Harvard to Georgia Tech to Stanford, and at libraries from the New York Public to the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the Newberry in Chicago, and the Hoover Institution.

My trilogy of books providing new perspectives on the American Revolution are now all in print. THE FOUNDING FORTUNES (2020); HOW THE FRENCH SAVED AMERICA (2017); and GENTLEMEN SCIENTISTS AND REVOLUTIONARIES (2014).

Earlier books continue to attract attention.

ABSOLUTE ZERO was recently reviewed as an important classic in the
Feb. 1, 2022 issue of Forbes

WHOEVER FIGHTS MONSTERS, written with Robert K. Ressler, an international bestseller, is now a must-have audio book for those interested in serial killers. AMERICAN ICONOCLAST, my biography of Eric Hoffer, the “longshoreman philosopher,” was occasion for a recent interview with Canadian Broadcasting. In December 2019, SKYSCRAPER DREAMS, my history of the builders of New York City, was the top recommendation for holiday reading of the real-estate industry magazine The Real Deal. ABSOLUTE ZERO AND THE CONQUEST OF COLD was featured on several recent must-read lists of popular science.

More details about these and other books are in the following pages of this website. Read on!

Reference Sites

  • Connecticut Humanities Council
  • Edmond D. Pope For more information on my co-author, a former U.S. naval officer wrongfully imprisoned in Russia, the story we told in TORPEDOED!
  • Housatonic Heritage information about the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area
  • The Lakeville Journal
  • The Writers Room
  • TobaccoFree For more information on my co-author, Patrick Reynolds, and anti-smoking campaigns.

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