Noble Madness

James Delbourgo is recognized as the leading expert on the life and career of Sir Hans Sloane and a leading academic authority on the history of science and imperialism in the early modern world. Trained in the histories of science and empire at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is a tenured Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, having previously taught at McGill University, Montreal, where he directed the program in History and Philosophy of Science. His first book, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders: Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America (Harvard University Press, 2006), was awarded Harvard's Thomas J. Wilson Prize for the best first book in any field, and was runner-up for the Canadian Historical Association's Wallace K. Ferguson Prize. His Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum (2017), won the Leo Gershoy Award (AHA), Louis Gottschalk and Annibel Jenkins Prizes (ASECS), and the Hughes Prize (BSHS).

The word 'collecting' is often seen alongside the word 'mania,' but I never really understood just how intensely, wildly, hilariously and sometimes tragically obsessive true collectors can be until I read, in breathless wonder, James Delbourgo's magnificent A Noble Madness. A study of a certain kind of pathology, yes, but one that casts light on the whole history of ideas and the development of human curiosity and learning. This book is itself so compulsive and entertaining that I found myself wanting to collect the collectors whose lives and passions Delbourgo so brilliantly brings to life.