The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 1: Ancient Science

About this book

This volume in the highly respected Cambridge History of Science series is devoted to the history of science, medicine and mathematics of the Old World in antiquity. Organized by topic and culture, its essays by distinguished scholars offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of ancient science currently available. Together, they reveal the diversity of goals, contexts, and accomplishments in the study of nature in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and India. Intended to provide a balanced and inclusive treatment of the ancient world, contributors consider scientific, medical and mathematical learning in the cultures associated with the ancient world.

Contents

Part I. Mesopotamia:
1. Science and ancient Mesopotamia / Francesca Rochberg
2. Babylonian medicine as a discipline / Markham Geller
3. Mesopotamian mathematics / Jens Høyrup
4. Babylonian and Assyrian astral science / John M. Steele

Part II. Egypt:
5. The cultural context of (mathematical) experts in Ancient Egypt / Annette Imhausen
6. Egyptian medicine / John Nunn
7. Egyptian calendars and astronomy / Rolf Krauss
8. Egyptian mathematics / Jens Høyrup

Part III. Greek and Greco-Roman:
9. Physical and cosmological thought before Aristotle / Daniel Graham
10. Aristotle: an overview / Andrea Falcon
11. Aristotle's physical theory / Eric Lewis
12. Aristotle and the origins of zoology / James G. Lennox
13. Botany / Laurence Totelin
14. Science after Aristotle: Hellenistic and Roman science / Liba Taub
15. Late antiquity: science in the philosophical schools / Miira Tuominen
16. Medicine in early and classical Greece / Philip van der Eijk
17. Hellenistic and Roman medicine / Vivian Nutton
18. Greek mathematics / Nathan Sidoli
19. Astronomy and astrology / Alexander Jones
20. Greek and Greco-Roman geography / Klaus Geus
21. Greek optics / A. Mark Smith
22. Harmonics / Andrew Barker
23. Greek mechanics / Serafina Cuomo
24. Graeco-Egyptian alchemy / Cristina Viano

Part IV. India:
25. Astronomy and astrology in India / Kim Plofker
26. Mathematics in early India (1000 BCE–1000 CE) / Clemency Montelle
27. Indian medicine and Ayurveda / Philipp A. Maas

Part V. China:
28. Mathematical knowledge and practices from early imperial China until the Tang Dynasty / Karine Chemla
29. Medicine and healing in Han China / Vivienne Lo
30. Chinese astronomy in the early imperial age: a brief outline / Christopher Cullen

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Biography

Alexander Jones is Leon Levy Director Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and author of A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (2017).

Liba Taub is Director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science and Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Ptolemy's Universe: The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy's Astronomy (1993), Ancient Meteorology (2003), Aetna and the Moon: Explaining Nature in Ancient Greece and Rome (2008), and Science Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge, 2017).