From Michelangelo's experiments with the composition of pigments made by monks in Florence, to Niccol ̤Machiavelli's defense of Florence against Julius's attacking forces bent on restoring the Medicis to power, Ross King presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixtenth-century Italy, as well as uncommon insight into the intersection of art and history.

"The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison's incandescent lightbulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the lightbulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity. The lightbulb became a catalyst for the nation's...