Electrodynamics from Ampere to Einstein

Rating:
Summary: A difficult path
Review: The modern physicist learns about electromagnetism as a done deal; a very polished product centred about Maxwell's equations. But this book shows the long forgotten tribulations and controversies that got us to today's known state.

This text is rather specialised. You need to be thoroughly conversant with electromagnetism. On a par with Jackson's text, "Classical Electrodynamics". But presumably you also have an interest in the history of your field. Darrigol shows that the path was often obscure. Only in full hindsight, after Maxwell and also Einstein made their contributions, did it all come clear.

The scarcity of vector notation in the 19th century accounts can make reading some of the equations a little awkward. You have to perform some slight mental contortions to reinterpret what they're saying, in modern notation.