This volume offers to general and specialist readers alike the fullest and most complete survey of the development of science in the eighteenth century, exploring the implications of the 'scientific revolution' of the previous century and the major new growth-points, particularly in the experimental sciences. It is designed to be read as both a narrative and an interpretation, and also used as a work of reference. While prime attention is paid to western science, space is also given to science in traditional cultures and colonial science. The coverage strikes a balance between analysis of the cognitive dimension of science itself and interpretation of its wider social, economic and cultural significance. The contributors, world leaders in their respective specialities, engage with current historiographical and methodological controversies and strike out on positions of their own.
List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
General editors' preface
1. Introduction / Roy Porter
Part I. Science in Society:
2. The legacy of the 'scientific revolution': Science and the enlightenment / Peter Hans Reill
3. Science, the universities, and other public spaces: teaching science / Lawrence Brockliss
4. Scientific institutions and the organization of science / James McClellan III
5. Science and government / Robert Fox
6. Exploring natural knowledge: science and the popular / Mary Fissell and Roger Cooter
7. The image of the man of science / Steven Shapin
8. The philosopher's beard: women and gender in science / Londa Schiebinger
9. The prosopography of science / William Clark
Part II. Disciplines:
10. Classifying the sciences / Richard Yeo
11. The philosophy of science / Rob Iliffe
12. Ideas of nature: natural philosophy / John Gascoigne
13. Mathematics / Craig Fraser
14. Astronomy and cosmology / Curtis Wilson
15. Mechanics and experimental physics / Rod Home
16. Chemistry / Jan Golinski
17. The life sciences / Shirley A. Roe
18. The earth sciences / Rhoda Rappaport
19. The human sciences / Richard Olson
20. The medical sciences / Thomas H. Broman
21. Marginalized practices / Patricia Fara
Part III. Special Themes:
22. Scientific instruments and their makers / G. L'E. Turner
23. Print and public science / Adrian Johns
24. Scientific illustration in the eighteenth century / Brian Ford
25. Science, art and the representation of the natural world / Charlotte Klonk
26. Science and voyages of discovery / Rob Iliffe
Part IV. Non-Western Traditions:
27. Islam / Emilie Savage-Smith
28. India / Deepak Kumar
29. China / Frank Dikötter
30. Japan / Shigeru Nakayama
31. Latin America: from Baroque to Modern Colonial science / Jorge Cañizares Esguerra
Part V. Ramifications and Impacts:
32. Science and religion / John Hedley Brooke
33. Science, culture and the imagination: enlightenment configurations / George S. Rousseau
34. Science, philosophy, and the mind / Paul Wood
35. Global pillage: science, commerce and Empire / Larry Stewart
36. Technological and industrial change: a comparative essay / Ian Inkster
Index
"[...] [A] rich collection of material [...]"
– The Times Literary Supplement
"[...] historians of medicine will undoubtedly find this a useful reference book for help in contextualizing their teaching and research. It achieves Porter's intention of providing a stable platform upon which scholarship on the nineteenth century can be built."
– William H. Brock, Medical History
"[...] contains excellent chapters and it will be very useful as a guide within the world of history of science [...]"
– Ambixa