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Professor Price has enlarged his widely known and influential study of science and the humanities to include much new material, extraordinarily broad in its range: from ancient automata, talismans and symbols, to the differences of modern science and technology. Science since Babylonis now more fascinating and useful than ever to anyone concerned with the humanistic understanding of science. Originating in a series of five public lectures delivered under the auspices of the history department at Yale University in 1959, this book is an investigation of the circumstances and consequences of certain vital decisions relating to scientific crises which have the world to its present state of scientific and technological development. Not just another book on “History of Science,” it is a plea, an exemplification for a whole new range of studies to take its place in the territory between the humanities and the sciences. The chapter on “Diseases of Science” has received much public attention as an analysis of the present structure and probable future of the organization of science. The author documents his study with accounts of his own researches in his specific fields of interest, relating them to the “crises” which he believes to be of paramount importance.
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Derek de Solla Price
SCIENCE SINCE BABYLON Enlarged Edition
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SCIENCE SINCE BABYLON Enlarged Edition Derek de Solla Price Professor Price has enlarged his widely known and influential study of science and the humanities to include much new ma terial, extraordinarily broad in its range: from ancient automata, talismans and symbols, to the differences of modern science and technology. Science since Babylon is now more fascinating and useful than ever to anyone concerned with the humanistic under standing of science. Comments on the first edition: “Excellent observations and curious facts . . . abound in a brief, delightful and intriguing book/'—Charles Coulston Gillispie, Science “Mr. Price presents all of his topics with vigor and forthright determination, thus conveying to the reader his own enthusiasm for research and exposition. . . . [He] deals in a most remarkable and original manner with the subject of ‘diseases of science’ . . . [and] concludes with ian eloquent plea for a deep understanding of science based on its history and humanistic aspects.’’—-I. Bernard Cohen, New York Times
ISBN 0-300-01798-7
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Science Since Babylon
Science Since Babylon Enlarged Edition
Derek de Solla Price
New H aven and London Yale University Press
Enlarged edition copyright © 1975 by Derek de Sofia Price First edition copyright © 1961 by Derek J . de Solla Price All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without w ritten permission from the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America by BookCrafters, Inc., Chelsea, Michigan.
Permission to reprint "Automata and the Origins of Mechanism and Mechanistic Philosophy," © 1964 by the University of Chicago Press, "Geometrical and Scientific Talismans and Symbolisms," © 1973 by H einem ann Educational Books L td., and “The Difference Between Science and Technology,” first published by the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, is gratefully acknowledged.
Library of Congress catalog card number: International standard book number