The Oxford Illustrated History of Science is the first-ever fully illustrated global history of science, from Aristotle to the atom bomb - and beyond. The first part of the book tells the story of science in both the East and West from antiquity to the Enlightenment: from the ancient Mediterranean world to ancient China; from the exchanges between Islamic and Christian scholars in the Middle Ages to the Chinese invention of gunpowder, paper, and the printing press; from the Scientific Revolution of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe to the intellectual ferment of the eighteenth century. The chapters that follow focus on the increasingly specialized story of science since the end of the eighteenth century, covering experimental science in the laboratory from Michael Faraday to CERN; the exploration of nature from intrepid Victorian explorers to twentieth century primatologists; the mapping of the universe from the discovery of Uranus to the Big Bang Theory; the impact of evolutionary ideas from Lamarck, Darwin, and Wallace to DNA; and the story of theoretical physics from James Clark Maxwell to Quantum Theory and beyond. A concluding chapter reflects on how scientists have communicated their work to a wider public, from the Great Exhibition of 1851 to the Internet in the early twenty-first century.
Author(s): Iwan Rhys Morus
Series: Oxford Illustrated History
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2017
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 447
Tags: History: Science; Science History
Cover
The Oxford Illustrated History of Science
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
Introduction
Part I: Seeking Origins
1: Science in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Ancient Egypt
Babylonian Mathematics and Astronomy
Greek Natural Philosophy
Greek Mathematics
Geometrizing the Cosmos
Planetary Astronomy
Geography and Cartography
Ancient Astrology
Greek and Roman Medicine
Natural History
The Sciences in Ancient Education
2: Science in Ancient China
Some Historical Figuresand the Formation of Scientific Knowledge
Cosmogony
Observation and the Structure of Heaven before the Han
Han Cosmology, Astrology, and the Calendar
Qi, Yin Yang, and the Five Agents
Medicine
Conclusion
3: Science in the Medieval Christian and Islamic Worlds
Early Medieval Assertoric Science
Astrology as Science, Politics, and Guidance
Optics in Fatimid Cairo
The Sciences between China and the Islamic World in Mongol Tabriz
Map-Making in Ottoman Constantinople and Istanbul
The New Naturalism and a New Society
The Scientific Beginnings in Abbasid Baghdad
Translation and Transformation
A New Home for Science: The University
Medieval Science and Religion
4: Science in the Pre-Modern East
Bureaucracy, Scholarship, and Expertise
Song Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
Codifying Bodies of Knowledge
Heaven
Yuan dynasty
Ming dynasty
Earth-Agriculture and Hydraulics
Song dynasty
Yuan dynasty
Ming dynasty
Man: medicine and health care
Yuan dynasty
Ming dynasty
Knowledge, Learning, and Bureaucracy
5: The Scientific Revolution
How It All Began: The Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution
A Revolution within a Revolution: The Copernican Revolution
Replacing Aristotle: From Occult Philosophies to the Mechanical Philosophy
The New Philosophies and Society: Patronage and Pragmatism
The New Authority of Natural Philosophy
6: Enlightenment Science
Nations and Communications
Cosmic Machinery
Forces, Fluids, and Feelings
Collecting and Exploring
Crises and Revolutions
Conclusion: The Legacy of Enlightenment Science
Part II: Doing Science
7: Experimental Cultures
Demonstrating Nature
Experimental Institutions
Big Science
8: Exploring Nature
Why Do Field Science?
Categorizing field science
Embodying field science
The Political Economy of Field Science
Magnetic measurements and the maritime economy
Science and the sub-marine
Science in the state´s service
Activism, Authority, and Field Science
Getting access to the field
Locals, laypeople, and locating expertise
Pleasure, pain, and popular narratives
Conclusion
9: The Meaning of Life
The Rise of Materialism
The New Science of Life
Electricity and Life
Mind and Brain
The Emergence of Evolutionism
The `Vestiges´ Debate
The Development of Darwin´s Theory
The Darwinian Revolution
The Eclipse of Darwinism
The Emergence of Genetics
Biology and Modern Materialism
10: Mapping the Universe
A Very Different Sort of Astronomer
Positional Astronomy
The Nature of the Nebulae
Spectroscopy
Beyond the Galaxy?
Redshifts?
The Big Galaxy
Other Galaxies?
The Expanding Universe
Astronomy Transformed
A Steady State Universe?
Astronomy from Space
Telescopes into Space
Conclusions
11: Theoretical Visions
Restraining Speculation
Industrial Theory
The Power of Thought
Revolutionary Theory
Theory Goes to War
Unified Theory
The Nature of Theory
12: Communicating Science
Early-Modern Roots
The taming of nature: the Royal Institution
Diversifying display: science in the hands of workers
Science for the nation (1): the Great Exhibition and its successors
Science for the nation (2): natural history
Science in the marketplace of the long nineteenth century
The coming of mass media
Science 2.0
Further Reading
1. SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
2. SCIENCE IN ANCIENT CHINA
3. SCIENCE IN THE MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC WORLDS
4. SCIENCE IN THE PRE-MODERN EAST
5. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
6. ENLIGHTENMENT SCIENCE
7. EXPERIMENTAL CULTURES
8. EXPLORING NATURE
9. THE MEANING OF LIFE
10. MAPPING THE UNIVERSE
11. THEORETICAL VISIONS
12. COMMUNICATING SCIENCE
Picture Acknowledgements
Index
