Electrodynamics from Ampère to Einstein

<br> Darrigol has managed to get beyond the controversy and the confusion, assembling an interesting, coherent, and convincing narrative. By taking the best from the various scholars that have contributed to the field, by discarding the dross with a minimum of fuss and bother, and by adding his own substantial research as well as his own synthetic vision, Darrigol has crafted a history of electromagnetic experiment and theory in the 19th century that represents the best the history-of-physics enterprise has to offer. Daniel M. Siegel, Physics Today, February 2002<p><br> The detailed analysis and understanding of the eighty or so years of endeavor which led form 'Ampere to Einstein' has been the daunting tasks that Professor Olivier Darrigol has set himself. I must admit that I find it extremely difficult to do justice in a brief review to this monumental work of scholarship. . .Darrigol's monograph is a highly detailed and mathematical account of the historical development of electromagnetism --European Journal of Physics<p><br> The scope of Olivier Darrigol's impressive treatise arouses both surprise and admiration. . .Darrigol offers a richly textured narrative, painstaking in its attention to detail and compelling in conceptual thrust, a work which will repay attention by historians and philosophers of physics. . .Darrigol builds massively and impressively on contemporary scholarship on the history of 19th-century physics. --Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics<p><br>