E-Book Overview
This volume offers to general and specialist readers alike the fullest and most complete survey of the development of science in the eighteenth century. It is designed to be read as both a narrative and an interpretation, and also to be used as a work of reference. While prime attention is paid to Western science, space is also given to science in traditional cultures and to colonial science. The contributors, world leaders in their respective specialties, engage with current historiographical and methodological controversies and strike out positions of their own.
E-Book Content
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Eighteenth-Century Science 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. Although prime attention is paid to Western science, space is also given to science in traditional cultures and to 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 specialties, engage with current historiographical and methodological controversies and strike out positions of their own. Roy Porter (–), Professor Emeritus of the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, was educated at Cambridge University. He was the author of more than books and articles, including Doctor of Society: Thomas Beddoes and the Sick Trade in Late Enlightenment Engl