Lavoisier Chemist, Biologist, Economist Jean-Pierre Poirier. Translated by Rebecca Balinski On the day following the guillotining of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange lamented the loss of the man commonly considered the father of modern chemistry. "It took them only an instant to cut off that head," he said, "but it is unlikely that a hundred years will suffice to reproduce a similar one." Although he lived only to the age of 51, Lavoisier revolutionized the field of chemistry. He created the first modern table of chemical elements, recognized the role oxygen plays in the rusting of metals, demonstrated that water--previously considered one of the four fundamental elements--is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and asserted that the total weights of the products of a chemical reaction must equal the total weights of the reactants. Yet despite his remarkable importance to modern chemistry, Lavoisier's scientific work was more a hobby than a profession. In fact, because he made his living as a tax collector, his scientific work was relegated to early morning and after-dinner hours. Appropriately, the picture Poirier paints of Lavoisier is that of the whole man--not only a scientist but a successful financier, respected economist, and influential administrator as well. Jean-Pierre Poirier has both a medical degree and a doctorate in economics. Formerly a practicing gastroenterologist and Director of Research at a French pharmaceutical company, he is a member of the Comite Lavoisier at the Paris Academy of Sciences. Chemical Sciences in Society 1996 544 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 12 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-1649-3 Paper $29.95s 19.50 World Rights Science, General, Biography, History Short copy: Translated from the French and revised and expanded by the author, the book provides a rich and detailed account of all facets of Lavoisier's extraordinary career.

Highlighting the social tensions that confront the liberal tradition, Pierre Manent draws a portrait of what we, citizens of modern liberal democracies, have become. For Manent, a discussion of liberalism encompasses the foundations of modern society, its secularism, its individualism, and its conception of rights. The frequent incapacity of the morally neutral, democratic state to further social causes, he argues, derives from the liberal stance that political life does not serve a higher purpose. Through quick-moving, highly synthetic essays, he explores the development of liberal thinking in terms of a single theme: the decline of theological politics.

The author traces the liberal stance to Machiavelli, who, in seeking to divorce everyday life from the pervasive influence of the Catholic church, separated politics from all notions of a cosmological order. What followed, as Manent demonstrates in his analyses of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Guizot, and Constant, was the evolving concept of an individual with no goals outside the confines of the self and a state with no purpose but to prevent individuals from dominating one another. Weighing both the positive and negative effects of such a political arrangement, Manent raises important questions about the fundamental political issues of the day, among them the possibility of individual rights being reconciled with the necessary demands of political organization, and the desirability of a government system neutral about religion but not about public morals.