New Posts on Joseph Priestley

Yesterday, Positive Liberty, posted an interesting blog: 'Joseph Priestley on the Swedenborgs'. In this entry they cite known letters between Priestley and the Swedenborgs as described in a recent publication William Blake and the Culture of Radical Cristianity by Robert Rix, Ashgate Pubishing, July, 2007, 178pp.

Oh, the heretics that are among us! I merely mention this as a link and will not elaborate on it here. I note that a reader of that blog responded to the blog, "Oh, I’d have paid to see Priestley answer a Mormon knock on his door…Oy".

Also, an interesting commentary appears in the UUworld.org web site. It covers two recent books about Priestley:Joseph Priestley: Scientist, Philosopher, and Theologian, published by the Dr. Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies at the University of London, edited by Isabel Rivers and David Wykes; and, Steven Johnson's recent biography, The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America, published last year by Riverhead Books .The article is favorable to the Rivers and Wykes text but fairly critical of Johnson's work. I will add my comments later after I have thought about it some more. Please see my separate post on Johnson's book.