Revolutionizing the Sciences - by Peter Dear (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This thoroughly revised third edition of an award-winning book offers a keen insight into how the Scientific Revolution happened and why. Covering central scientific figures, including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Bacon, this new edition features:

- Greater treatment of alchemy and associated craft activities to reflect trends in current scholarship
- Extended material on Francis Bacon
- A new historiographical essay

Reflecting on the origins of scientific practice in early modern Europe, Peter Dear traces the revolution in thought that changed the natural world from something to be contemplated into something to be used.

Concise and readable, this book is ideal for students who are studying the Scientific Revolution and its impact on the early modern world. The first edition was the winner of the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize of the History of Science Society.

Review Quotes

"[Dear] throws interesting light on the changing criteria used to evaluate natural knowledge, especially the increasing emphasis on experiment. . . . As a full and accurate account of such matters, this book is the best available, and I would recommend it to anyone."--Michael Hunter, Nature

"Succinct, well-organized, and clearly written, this is an excellent account of the intellectual transformation of our understanding of the natural world between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."--Paula Findlen, Stanford University

"This book is a clear first choice for students and teachers. Incorporating cutting-edge scholarship, it matches breadth of thematic coverage with clarity of exposition and takes the reader gently but firmly through the field."--Simon Ditchfield, University of York

About the Author

Peter Dear is professor of history and science and technology studies at Cornell University. He is the author of several books, including The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World.