Any student of Physics, and electromagnetism in particular, will be familiar with the name Faraday. There is “Faraday’s law of induction” that relates creation of electric currents by changing magnetic field, “Faraday cage” is a room that shields from the static electric fields, and the unit of capacitance bears the name farad in Faraday’s honor. Some of us may know that Faraday was a largely self-taught and brilliant experimentalist, but other than that even most Physicists know very few facts about his life. This very short introduction aims to fill in those gaps, and it presents some of the most important events in Faraday’s life, as well as some of the more noteworthy developments in Faraday’s posthumous fame.

The book primarily focuses on Faraday’s scientific works and lectures, but there is a considerable amount of background biographical material as well. An interesting tidbit of information on Faraday is that his whole life he was a very active member of Sandemanians, a small Christian sect that flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At this time people who were not officially affiliated with the Church of England were not able to take the full advantage of all social and political institutions, so we can infer that Faraday took his faith very seriously.

The image of Faraday that emerges from this book is that of perfect gentleman-scientists: someone who was primarily concerned with the advancement of human knowledge and was not driven by financial or commercial concerns. The book also emphasizes many achievements that Faraday had made in fields that are largely forgotten now. We also learn about several major mistakes that Faraday had made, and in my opinion this is one of the virtues of this short introduction. Too many history of science books present this history as one great success after another, while most of the dead ends are conveniently forgotten. The truth is quite different: even the greatest scientists often make errors of judgment or downright blunders, but this is exactly how the science works. Mistakes, even the big ones, are more often than not necessary for us to fully understand what the right kind of understanding ought to be.

This is a short yet highly informative introduction to Faraday and anyone who is interested in the history of science would appreciate reading it.