Bøger af Peter Dear

From the award-winning author of Revolutionizing the Sciences, a monumental historical account of how of we came to see the world through the lens of scienceScience is the basis of our assumptions about ourselves and our world, from ideas about our evolutionary past to our conceptions of the vast expanses of space and the smallest particles of matter. In this panoramic book, acclaimed historian of science Peter Dear uncovers the roots of such beliefs, revealing how they constitute a natural philosophy that has been developed and refined over the course of centuries—and how the world as we have come to know it was by no means inevitable.In a sweeping, multifaceted narrative, Dear describes some of the most breathtaking accomplishments in the advance of human knowledge, such as Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation, Carl Linnaeus’s taxonomy, Antoine Lavoisier’s new chemistry, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity. Challenging the notion that science is only about “making discoveries,” he shows how our world has been formed by people, institutions, and cultural assumptions, giving rise to disciplines ranging from biology and astrophysics to electromagnetism and the social sciences.Taking readers from the early eighteenth century to today, The World as We Know It reveals how our ideas about our place in the universe were bequeathed to us by individuals, cultures, and a curiosity that knows no bounds.

This book is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Early Modern History, European History, History of Medicine, History of Science and Technology and the History and Philosophy of Science.

Based on the observation that the enterprise of science is, and has been, directed toward two distinct but frequently conflated ends - doing and knowing, this title considers how science as such has evolved, and how it has marshaled itself to make sense of the world. It is designed for aficionados, as well as historians of science.