In the final decades of the 1700s, as the threat of revolution began to dim the radiance of the Enlightenment, two brilliant scientists simultaneously achieved a breakthrough that would alter the course of human thought and history: they discovered oxygen. The humble English dissenter Joseph Priestley and the French aristocrat Antoine Lavoisier were unlikely competitors, but their fierce rivalry to solve the "riddle of air" became a kind of eighteenth-century space race, a contest made all the more exciting by the tumult of their time.

In A World on Fire, acclaimed writer Joe Jackson brings to life the seismic intellectual and political shifts that ushered in modern science. Set against the conflagrations of the American Revolution, the storming of the Bastille, and the Reign of Terror, Jackson's narrative deftly weaves together biography and history, scientific passion and political will. With their discoveries inside the laboratorypaving the way for the identification of the elements as well as modern atomic physicsand the tragedy of their downfalls, Priestley and Lavoisier epitomize the plight of the scientist in the modern age. With A World on Fire, Jackson has transformed their story into a spellbinding work of narrative nonfiction.

"Who first discovered oxygen in the 1770s: English scientist Joseph Priestley or the French aristocrat Antoine Lavoisier? The question became a controversial one, as novelist and nonfiction author Jackson relates, at a time when France and England were enemies. Jackson (Leavenworth Train) shows that Priestley was the first to isolate oxygen, but didn't realize what it was: British scientists still clung to the old 'phlogiston' theory of burning, and Priestley called the gas 'dephlogisticated air.' Lavoisier, who undoubtedly based his discoveries on conversations with Priestley, recognized that oxygen was a distinct gas and in the process revolutionized thinking on combustion. (He also developed the chemical nomenclature used today.) Both men met unhappy fates: Priestley, a vocal opponent of the power of both the king and the Church, saw his home burnt down by a mob and fled to America. The aristocratic Lavoisier (as Madison Smartt Bell also recounted in his recent Lavoisier in the Year One) was guillotined during the Terror, condemned with the words, 'The Republic has no need of scientists.' Jackson offers a well-written and lavishly detailed account of a seminal period in the development of modern chemistry. 8 pages of illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Noah Lukeman." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Joe Jackson is the author of one novel and three nonfiction titles, including Leavenworth Train, which was a finalist for the 2002 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. He worked for twelve years as an investigative reporter for the Virginian-Pilot, covering criminal justice and the state's death row.