The Invention of Clouds is the true story of Luke Howard the amateur English meteorologist who in 1802 gave the clouds their names -- cumulus cirrus stratus. He immediately gained international fame becoming a cult figure among artists and painters -- Goethe Constable and Coleridge revered him -- and legitimizing the science of meteorology. Part history of science part cultural excavation this is not only the biography of a man but of a moment: the cultural birth of the modern scientific era.