ENGLISH

The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Science

By Roy Porter , George Sebastian Rousseau

Book information

Year
2008
ISBN
052108718X, 9780521087186, 052122599X, 9780521225991
LCC
Q125 .F42
Open Library ID
OL21517745M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
7 MB (6905114 bytes)
Edition
1
Pages
516\515
Topic
History
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

The thirteen original essays in this book examine the status and development of the sciences in the eighteenth century. The last generation has seen a revolution in the methodology adopted by historians of science: The development of science is no longer described as a steady progress towards truth - certainties have given way to questions. The essays in this volume scrutinize these changing perspectives in historiography and recommend paths for future study. The eighteenth century has been a neglected and much-misunderstood era in the development of science, all too often viewed as something of a trough between the towering achievements of the 'Scientific Revolution' and the nineteenth century. Yet it was a period of notable developments; it saw the establishment of such fields as electricity and heat, the 'chemical revolution', the new science of gases, the isolation of oxygen, the nebular hypothesis in cosmology, the foundation of rational mechanics, and the birth pangs of biology, geology and psychology. It was, indeed, an age when knowledge was in ferment.

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