Secret Science – Spanish Cosmography and the New World - Hardcover

Portuondo, Maria M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226675343 ISBN 13: 9780226675343

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Synopsis

The discovery of the New World raised many questions for early modern scientists: What did these lands contain? Where did they lie in relation to Europe? Who lived there, and what were their inhabitants like? Imperial expansion necessitated changes in the way such scientific knowledge was gathered, and Spanish cosmographers in particular were charged with turning their observations of the New World into a body of knowledge that could be used for governing the largest empire the world had ever known. As Maria M. Portuondo here shows, this cosmographic knowledge had considerable strategic, defensive, and monetary value that royal scientists were charged with safeguarding from foreign and internal enemies. Cosmography was thus a secret science, but despite the limited dissemination of this body of knowledge, royal cosmographers applied alternative epistemologies and new methodologies that changed the discipline, and, in the process, how Europeans understood the natural world. "Secret Science" promises to enhance our understanding of early modern science and the scientific revolution by shedding light on a nation that has long been in the shadow of the Black Legend.

About this title

About the Author

Maria M. Portuondo is assistant professor of history of science at the Johns Hopkins University.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226675343
• ISBN 13: 9780226675343
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352