“Lucid. A fireworks of reflections on the historical geography of art and science.”

H. Otto Sibum, Uppsala University

“In this thoroughly original account, Simon Werrett traces fireworks as an object of practical and theoretical knowledge across an impressive swath of European geography and history. Still more inspiring is his wide-ranging yet subtle analysis of the place of fireworks in the history of science and culture, demonstrating the fascinating transformations that pyrotechnics underwent as it was employed by newly self-confident gunners to refine their image as peaceful deployers of gunpowder, as it was taken up by court culture for new representations of power, as it moved back and forth between practitioners and scholars, became an object of natural philosophical speculation, spread into the realm of polite society and public science, merged with the investigations of the new phenomenon of electricity, and finally staked its claim to the new field of chemistry.  Along the way, Werrett makes many invaluable points about the intersections of fireworks with political, religious, economic, and intellectual debates, and, in his comparison of fireworks in London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, he brilliantly underscores the contingency of the development of natural science.”

Pamela H. Smith, Columbia University

“Simon Werrett has written a spectacular book which uses the history of fireworks to cast light on questions of broad and fundamental importance. Refusing to be bound by traditional narratives that cast craft as subordinate to theory and limit our gaze to the local or national character of scientific and artisanal endeavor, he gracefully teaches us to appreciate the complex relations between early modern science and artisanry, in terms of their temporal, geographical and practical developments.”

Lissa Roberts, University of Twente

“Simon Werrett’s Fireworks places the pyrotechnic arts at the heart of European culture in the early-modern era.  It examines fireworks in relation to royal and courtly patronage, to public entertainment, to the development of commerce, and to the scientific culture of the Enlightenment.  No mere passing spectacle, this is a genuinely illuminating book.”

Jan Golinski, University of New Hampshire

“[Werrett] provides novel insights into a neglected aspect of European civilization. . . . Fireworks will interest those concerned with the interactions of science, technology, and society and those interested in the history of manipulations of societies.”

F. N. Egerton, University of Wisconsin-Parkside | Choice