Customer Reviews

Dawn Of Modern Science: From The Ancient Greeks To The Renaissance

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3 star:		(1)
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This review is written from the perspective of a scientist who is interested in the history of science, and from this perspective I do not feel that this book met my needs. I was looking for a book, like Kuhn's "Copernican Revolution" or Lindberg's "The Beginnings of Western Science", in other words a book that describes some science and how it evolved. This book does not contain very much science and provides only a very superficial discussion of the evolution of science. The book is, however, well written, and lyrical in its prose.

The author is quite upfront in his acknowledgement that - "As I look back, I realize that I grew up with a profound distrust, not to say hostility, towards science and its twin, technology. To my essentially romantic soul, science seemed the great destroyer, Siva, the unfeeling foe of scenic beauty and poetic simplicity, ...". The book is written from the perspective of a humanist and tries to describe science from that perspective. The book is divided into a series of essays on topics such as - "The idea of the Earth in Renaissance Florence", `Science and Faith in Chartres", "Art and Science of the Renaissance". This may appeal to one interested in such general topics, but not for one like myself who was interested in a more detailed discussion of science and I could therefore only give the book three stars. Someone interested in the aforementioned topics would likely rate it higher.

Please note - This book is based on a 1980 edition, which I believe to be essentially the same as later edition listed here, although this later edition is listed as having 316 pages, whereas my 1980 edition contains 297 pages plus 17 pages numbered in Roman numerals and three un-numbered pages.