Novelist Honore de Balzac was the first to use the phrase "Paris savant" to refer to the dynamic Parisian scientific and intellectual community of the late 18th century. The Academy of Sciences was highly active during this time, and was a meeting place for intellectual and scientific elite, who worked together toward the diffusion of scientific knowledge into Parisian society. The Royal Observatory was a headquarters for French astronomy, as well as the great geodesic project to map all of France. The Royal Mint hosted courses in chemistry and mining, and the Arsenal near the Bastille housed the laboratory of Lavoisier, the most celebrated chemist of the age. This book is the English translation of Bruno Belhoste's Paris Savant: Encounters in Enlightenment Science, originally published in France in 2011. Belhoste discusses how the Parisian scientific community came into its important place in the French Enlightenment, focusing on the Academy of Sciences. Chapters cover subjects such as what role Parisian geography played in the movement, the contributions of French scientists to industrial and urban improvement, and how the Academy of Sciences clashed with the revolutionary crisis, resulting in its closing in 1793. The translation includes a prologue for English readers.

A great difficulty facing a biographer of Cauchy is that of delineating the curious interplay between the man, his times, and his scientific endeavors. Professor Belhoste has succeeded admirably in meeting this challenge and has thus written a vivid biography that is both readable and informative. His subject stands out as one of the most brilliant, versatile, and prolific fig ures in the annals of science. Nearly two hundred years have now passed since the young Cauchy set about his task of clarifying mathematics, extending it, applying it wherever possible, and placing it on a firm theoretical footing. Through Belhoste's work we are afforded a detailed, rather personalized picture of how a first rate mathematician worked at his discipline - his strivings, his inspirations, his triumphs, his failures, and above all, his conflicts and his errors.