Here are 100 books that The Beginnings of Western Science fans have personally recommended if you like
The Beginnings of Western Science.
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I am Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Kansas, where I taught the History of Chemistry, History of Science in the United States, Early-Modern Scientific Revolution, and Great Lives in Science, among other courses. I also have published on late 19th-century physical science (with emphasis on spectroscopy and the work of Sir William Crookes) and the development of 20th-century electronic devices to aid chemical analyses (e.g., the development of handheld x-ray fluorescence spectrometers to measure lead concentration in paint). In addition to my interests in the history of science, I serve as the Technical Editor for an international environmental services company.
This is a magnificent history of astronomy and cosmology in all cultures (not just Western).
It is illustrated beautifully and presents technical information in a manner understandable to people unfamiliar with details of astronomy. I liked this because it discussed authoritatively virtually every aspect of its subject matter within the histories of multiple cultures.
For millennia humans have studied the skies to help them grow crops, navigate the seas, and earn favor from their gods. We still look to the stars today for answers to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? Will it end, and if so, how? What is our place within it? John North has been examining such questions for decades. In "Cosmos", he offers a sweeping historical survey of the two sciences that help define our place in the universe: astronomy and cosmology.Organizing his history chronologically, North begins by examining Paleolithic cave drawings that clearly chart the phases of the…
I am Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Kansas, where I taught the History of Chemistry, History of Science in the United States, Early-Modern Scientific Revolution, and Great Lives in Science, among other courses. I also have published on late 19th-century physical science (with emphasis on spectroscopy and the work of Sir William Crookes) and the development of 20th-century electronic devices to aid chemical analyses (e.g., the development of handheld x-ray fluorescence spectrometers to measure lead concentration in paint). In addition to my interests in the history of science, I serve as the Technical Editor for an international environmental services company.
Although somewhat dated, this classic work in the history of science remains a readable and dependable rendition of events in astronomy and cosmology in the 16th and 17th centuries.
An appeal of this book is its suitability for discussion together with Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a general interpretation of the history of science of great influence on historians and philosophers of science for approximately 60 years.
For scientist and layman alike this book provides vivid evidence that the Copernican Revolution has by no means lost its significance today. Few episodes in the development of scientific theory show so clearly how the solution to a highly technical problem can alter our basic thought processes and attitudes. Understanding the processes which underlay the Revolution gives us a perspective, in this scientific age, from which to evaluate our own beliefs more intelligently. With a constant keen awareness of the inseparable mixture of its technical, philosophical, and humanistic elements, Thomas S. Kuhn displays the full scope of the Copernican Revolution…
I am Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Kansas, where I taught the History of Chemistry, History of Science in the United States, Early-Modern Scientific Revolution, and Great Lives in Science, among other courses. I also have published on late 19th-century physical science (with emphasis on spectroscopy and the work of Sir William Crookes) and the development of 20th-century electronic devices to aid chemical analyses (e.g., the development of handheld x-ray fluorescence spectrometers to measure lead concentration in paint). In addition to my interests in the history of science, I serve as the Technical Editor for an international environmental services company.
By far, the best biography of Galileo, portraying not only his life and science, but the essential influence of his literary experiences and aspirations on his science and associated writings.
My regard for this book extends also to Heilbron’s exposure not only of Galileo’s innovative contributions to astronomy (via telescopic observations) and physics (via his law of falling bodies and inertial theories), but of his fallibilities—personal and scientific.
Just over four hundred years ago, in 1610, Galileo published the Siderius nuncius, or Starry Messenger, a 'hurried little masterpiece' in John Heilbron's words. Presenting to the world his remarkable observations using the recently invented telescope - of the craters of the moon, and the satellites of Jupiter, observations that forced changes to perceptions of the perfection of the heavens and the centrality of the Earth - the appearance of the little book is regarded as one of the greatest moments in the history of science. It was also a point of change in the life of Galileo himself, propelling…
I am Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Kansas, where I taught the History of Chemistry, History of Science in the United States, Early-Modern Scientific Revolution, and Great Lives in Science, among other courses. I also have published on late 19th-century physical science (with emphasis on spectroscopy and the work of Sir William Crookes) and the development of 20th-century electronic devices to aid chemical analyses (e.g., the development of handheld x-ray fluorescence spectrometers to measure lead concentration in paint). In addition to my interests in the history of science, I serve as the Technical Editor for an international environmental services company.
No better overall treatment of the Scientific Revolution during the 17th century is available for the reader who would encounter this material for the first time.
I used this book as a major text in my survey course on the history of modern science. The author also wrote arguably the leading biography of Isaac Newton.
This introduction to the history of science in the seventeenth century examines the so-called 'scientific revolution' in terms of the interplay between two major themes. The Platonic-Pythagorean tradition looked on nature in geometric terms with the conviction that the cosmos was constructed according to the principles of mathematical order, while the mechanical philosophy conceived of nature as a huge machine and sought to explain the hidden mechanisms behind phenomena. Pursuing different goals, these two movements of thought tended to conflict with each other, and more than the obviously mathematical sciences were affected - the influence spread as far as chemistry…
I’m fascinated by systems of thought and very interested in understanding how we can improve our ability to create a better society for all. I think the past makes a good laboratory for investigating these kinds of questions. I got interested in early modern economic theory while researching the English East India Company for my dissertation in the sociology department of Columbia University, which was a great place for historical and computational sociology. I now teach economic sociology and theory as a professor at Yale University, another institution with amazing strengths in history, data science, and computational methods.
This book is for the truly dedicated because Medieval European Economic Theory isn’t particularly foundational or even correct by today’s standards, so value other than the intrinsic pleasure you get exploring these ideas is minimal. But the ideas are fascinating, and Kaye gives a lot of insight into how transformative ways of thinking about the world emerge over time.
The ideal of balance and its association with what is ordered, just, and healthful remained unchanged throughout the medieval period. The central place allotted to balance in the workings of nature and society also remained unchanged. What changed within the culture of scholasticism, between approximately 1280 and 1360, was the emergence of a greatly expanded sense of what balance is and can be. In this groundbreaking history of balance, Joel Kaye reveals that this new sense of balance and its potentialities became the basis of a new model of equilibrium, shaped and shared by the most acute and innovative thinkers…
I am Eric Cheyfitz, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell University, where I am on the faculty of The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program and its former director. Because of my expertise in federal Indian law, I have been a consultant in certain legal matters involving Native issues. Some of the many books I teach and have written about are on my Shepherd list. My work is sustaining: writing and teaching about Native life and literature is a way of joining a crucial conversation about the survival of the planet through living a socially, politically, and economically balanced life.
I am recommending this book of beautifully written essays on the environment by the Chickasaw novelist, poet, and essayist Linda Hogan because it is the best book on the subject I know.
Dwellings focuses on the Indigenous relation to the natural world, one of kinship, a subject at the core of my thinking. “Here is a lesson,” Hogan tells us, “what happens to the people and what happens to the land is the same thing.” This is a lesson the West has not learned; and its ignorance of this lesson or its refusal to learn it has led us to the brink of climate collapse.
Reading Dwellings carefully and thoughtfully is a way I rehearse how to live with, not against the environment.
Award-winning Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan's first work of nonfiction explores the author's lifelong love for the living world and all its inhabitants. As an Indian woman, grandmother, and environmentalist, Hogan questions "our responsibilities to the caretaking of the future and to the other species who share our journey." In stories about bats, bees, porcupines, wolves, and caves, Hogan honors the spirit of all living things. Dwellings is about the idea and meaning of home. The earth is our universal home, this book tells us. Dwellings teaches us about cultures whose understanding of the world are often at odds…
I remember, as a very young child, clandestinely sneaking out of the house on humid Houston nights to gather toads. How my parents never caught me in the act, I do not know. I only know holding these amphibians in my hands felt special, magical even. This compulsion toward other creatures speaks to the unfolding of my lifelong learnings, a path that led me to a PhD in Religion and Nature and then to work for the Center for Humans and Nature. I’ve never stopped reflecting on how humans might better care for our earthling kin, and I don’t suspect I’ll ever cease marveling at the earth’s wild generativity.
Hailed as a “new genre of nature writing,” Mueller’s book is species-specific, dwelling upon the lives and deaths of salmon, yet the subject matter could apply to any creature that has become a commodity within late-stage capitalism.Mueller contrasts the Norwegian farmed-salmon industry and the increasing mechanization and reduction of living beings to things with wild salmon populations and Native people’s perspectives from the Pacific Northwest. Critically, he dares to take on the perspective of salmon, sprinkling memorable and moving vignettes throughout the book, helping readers imagine the world from a salmon’s-eye-view. This work of interspecies empathy is a rare and welcome contribution to thinking about personhood through a lens that is other-than-human.
Nautilus Award Silver Medal Winner, Ecology & Environment
In search of a new story for our place on earth
Being Salmon, Being Human examines Western culture's tragic alienation from nature by focusing on the relationship between people and salmon-weaving together key narratives about the Norwegian salmon industry as well as wild salmon in indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest.
Mueller uses this lens to articulate a comprehensive critique of human exceptionalism, directly challenging the four-hundred-year-old notion that other animals are nothing but complicated machines without rich inner lives and that Earth is a passive backdrop to human experience. Being fully…
I never believed the idea that creativity was for a gifted few. Throughout my life, as a teenage fishing guide, an entrepreneur and college professor, novelist, and creativity guide, the folks I’ve met are rich with creative and entrepreneurial qualities. My calling is to help you appreciate your creative genius so that it appreciates in value for you. Growing your creatively entrepreneurial genius is the best way to prepare for a future of unknowable unknowns, the best way to build careers we desire, the best way to fully appreciate life. I offer various perspectiveS on core creative and entrepreneurial concepts so you can construct the best path to your personal renewal and growth.
First and foremost we are sensual critters. At birth, our brains still have significant development to accomplish and focuses initially on the Sensory Control area since it’s vital for growth that we fully realize the messages and signals that the physical world is constantly sending. Here’s a poetic and philosophical exploration of how we emerged from and continue to be part of the physical sensual world. It makes sense it’s last. I’ve been reading it for two years without finishing; after a couple of pages of Abram’s beautiful wisdom about how, for instance, the first spoken languages were composed of natural sounds I need to put the book down and ruminate for a few days on the creative implications of my speaking and the sounds I make.
Winner of the International Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us. This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception.
For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including…
As a psychologist with environmental interests people often ask me about hope. It goes something like this: “Climate change is pushing us toward disaster! What is your source of hope?” I finally figured out that I only have one source of hope. It is that we, as people, are able to work together just well enough to keep it all afloat. There’s a lot involved in working together – learning to listen with compassion, run good meetings, empower everyone to give of their best, and rebuild trust when it starts to break down. I’ve been researching these topics in community settings for the past 15 years.
This book stopped me being scared of death – well almost. It is a wonderful read about how we are embodied creatures of planet Earth. Our very being is relationship. Take breathing for example. As you sit there you breathe in oxygen, nitrogen, and a little carbon dioxide. When you breathe out you release extra carbon dioxide – with that carbon coming from your body itself. You gift a little of your being in exchange for the oxygen - fragments that may end up in that tree outside your window. Once we understand that exchange is the essence of life, it helps us live well on our shared planet. As Weber explains, joy comes when we sense that life is increasing – for us and for others.
Our task then becomes to nurture life – the creative striving of all living things to become themselves and connect with others. Weber…
Nautilus Award Gold Medal Winner, Ecology & Environment
In Matter and Desire, internationally renowned biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber rewrites ecology as a tender practice of forging relationships, of yearning for connections, and of expressing these desires through our bodies. Being alive is an erotic process-constantly transforming the self through contact with others, desiring ever more life.
In clever and surprising ways, Weber recognizes that love-the impulse to establish connections, to intermingle, to weave our existence poetically together with that of other beings-is a foundational principle of reality. The fact that we disregard this principle lies at the core of…
I am a writer and educator, originally from the British Isles. Perhaps because of this, I am more than usually aware of the distraction and speed of contemporary American life. As a long-time meditator, and the author of World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down, I am encouraged and inspired by any book that draws attention to our “hurry sickness” and offers practices or suggestions to help us to slow down.
Earth's Wild Music was published just last year. Kathleen Dean Moore is a naturalist and philosopher, with a keen ear and searching eye. I love the form of this book (a gathering of short essays, or what the poet Ross Gay called “essayettes”) ranging widely across geography and time. It reaches back to my book on slowing down, and forward into my current project, which has to do with the art of listening. The writer Elizabeth Kolbert calls it “a love song to a vanishing world.”
At once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change.
In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and…
