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HARKNESS, Deborah E : The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution

Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2007

ISBN 9780300143164

A new book received with faint edgewear and a few smudges on textblock edges. Includes bibliographical references and an index.; Not just a few elite scientists, but Londoners from all walks of life--lawyers, prisoners, midwives, merchants--participated in the scientific community of Elizabethan times

Deborah E. Harkness is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and the bestselling author of the "A Discovery of Witches" series. She explores the streets, shops, back alleys, and gardens of Elizabethan London, where a boisterous and diverse group of men and women shared a keen interest in the study of nature. These assorted merchants, gardeners, barber-surgeons, midwives, instrument makers, mathematics teachers, engineers, alchemists, and other experimenters, she contends, formed a patchwork scientific community whose practices set the stage for the Scientific Revolution. While Francis Bacon has been widely regarded as the father of modern science, scores of his London contemporaries also deserve a share in this distinction. It was their collaborative, yet often contentious, ethos that helped to develop the ideals of modern scientific research.The book examines six particularly fascinating episodes of scientific inquiry and dispute in sixteenth-century London, bringing to life the individuals involved and the challenges they faced. These men and women experimented and invented, argued and competed, waged wars in the press, and struggled to understand the complexities of the natural world. Together their stories illuminate the blind alleys and surprising twists and turns taken as medieval philosophy gave way to the empirical, experimental culture that became a hallmark of the Scientific Revolution.;, 349 pages, Near Fine. Illustr: B&W Illustrations

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