Today the 'two cultures' - art and science - have come to be treated as fundamentally opposed, their aims incompatible. Scientific research is castigated for its inhumane methods & lack of moral responsibility, while art is treated as an enduring source of essential guidance to society’s spiritual well-being. Lisa Jardine makes clear in this remarkable book that this is a distinction which is both artificial & historically inaccurate. The intellectual revolution of the 17th & early 18th eighteenth centuries was the single most formative event in Western history, bringing together the humanities & natural sciences in an unprecedented ferment of conceptual & practical creativity. She documents the forces for change which brought the human & natural sciences together & gave them shape. Each of her series of key components - among them, precise time measurement, enhanced astronomical observation, selective animal & plant breeding & technological advances in navigation - lays a crucial part of the foundations for modern thought. INGENIOUS PURSUITS brilliantly illuminates the practice of science, its impact on the emerging modern world & its continuing relevance to society.
- 'fascinating … a scholar who wears her considerable learning lightly' - OBSERVER
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- 'well informed, rich in fascinating stories and eminently readable' - SUNDAY TIMES
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- 'For any reader with an interest in the period, or in science, this accessible history is a genuine delight.' - Philippa Gregory, INDEPENDENT
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- 'Jardine's broad-ranging investigations bring the characters and their times to life in all their adventurous, opportunistic, chance-taking glory' - THE SCOTSMAN
Trade Paperback:
£15.00
Published 05/10/2000
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