The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution - Softcover

Wootton, Professor Lansdowne Chair In Humanities David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061759538 ISBN 13: 9780061759536

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2016

Synopsis

A companion to such acclaimed works as The Age of Wonder, A Clockwork Universe, and Darwin's Ghosts--a groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world.

We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today, science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history.

The Invention of Science goes back five hundred years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently, but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts--Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe--whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition.

From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wotton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge. Ultimately, he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization--and the birth of the modern world we know.

About this title

Review:

"Wootton is a dazzling explicator of difficult ideas whose relish for his material is evident."--Matthew Price, the Boston Globe

"Wootton tells his tales well and portrays characters vividly. He writes with wit, and his book is full of surprises."--Robert P. Crease, The Wall Street Journal

"New, encyclopedic history."--Adam Gopnik, the New Yorker

"Vibrant and impressive...The Invention of Science is a marvel of expositional clarity"--Steve Donoghue, The Christian Science Monitor

"Not only a history of science but a revisionist historiography of science"--Steven Poole, The New Statesman

"A bracing rediscovery of the marvel that is science"--Booklist, starred review

"Fascinating and original ... Wootton is a marvellous writer with an enviously encyclopaedic knowledge, and he has exciting things to say ... a stimulating, well-informed and imaginative account."--Patricia Fara, Literary Review

"A superbly lucid examination of a dramatic revolution in human thought that deserves a place on the shelf with Thomas Kuhn and David Deutsch."--Kirkus Starred Review

"A masterly account of the 'scientific revolution.'"--Financial Times' Best Books of 2015

"Full of insights...even jaded scholars will find it fresh and compelling."--The Economist

From the Back Cover:

Before 1492, all significant knowledge was believed to be already available; there was no concept of progress, as people looked to the past, not the future, for understanding. David Wootton argues that the discovery of America demonstrated new knowledge was possible: indeed, it introduced the very concept of discovery and opened the way to the invention of science.

The first crucial discovery was Tycho Brahe's nova of 1572: proof that there could be change in the heavens. The invention of the telescope in 1608 rendered the old astronomy obsolete. Evangelista Torricelli's experiment with the vacuum, in 1643 directly led to the triumph of the experimental method used in the Royal Society by Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. By 1750, Newtonianism was being celebrated throughout Europe.

This innovative science relied on a new understanding of what knowledge may be, and with this came a fresh language: discovery, progress, fact, experiment, hypothesis, theory, and laws of nature. Although almost all these terms existed before 1492, their meanings were radically transformed, and they became tools to think scientifically. Now we all speak this language of science that was invented during the Scientific Revolution.

The new culture led to a new rationalism, repudiating alchemy, astrology, and the belief in witchcraft. It also led to the invention of the steam engine and to the first Industrial Revolution. Wootton's landmark work changes our understanding of how this great transformation came about, and of what science is.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0061759538
• ISBN 13: 9780061759536
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 784