Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age - Hardcover

Cook, Harold J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300117965 ISBN 13: 9780300117967

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2007

Synopsis

In this wide-ranging and stimulating book, a leading authority on the history of medicine and science presents convincing evidence that Dutch commerce, not religion, inspired the rise of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harold Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands, Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his conclusions are fresh and exciting. He uncovers direct links between the rise of trade and commerce in the Dutch Empire and the flourishing of scientific investigation. Cook argues that engaging in commerce changed the thinking of Dutch citizens, leading to a new emphasis on such values as objectivity, accumulation, and description. The preference for accurate information that accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally, wherever the Dutch engaged in trade. Medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science, as reflected in the development of gardens for both pleasure and botanical study, anatomical theatres, curiosity cabinets, and richly illustrated books about nature. Sweeping in scope and original in its insights, this book revises previous understandings of the history of science and ideas.

About this title

Product Description:

COOK, H. J. MATTERS OF EXCHANGE. COMMERCE, MEDICINE, AND SCIENCE IN THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE. LONDON, 2007, xiv 562 p.,figuras. Encuadernacion original. Nuevo.

Review:

'a dense, scholarly, fascinating book, packed with information and full of
marvellous stories about cultural exchange between different cultures.' -- BBC History Magazine, April, 2007

'...Cook's history is not another morality play, about exploitation and rapine. It is a subtle study of ambivalence and motivation, especially where Dutch companies - the agents of conquest and expropriation - conveyed useful and accurate information back to Europe.' -- The Lancet, October 20, 2007

'...a collectors delight that enriches our understanding of the
travels, trade and translations that made the Golden Age possible.' -- History Today, August 2007

'At every stage in Matters of Exchange: Commerce, medicine and science in the Dutch Golden Age, Cook looks beyond the facts from which his thesis started, to the moral philosophy, culture and religious changes and tensions which influenced the impact of the new approach.' -- Times Literary Supplement Times Literary Supplement, September 14, 2007

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0300117965
• ISBN 13: 9780300117967
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 560