Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution: A Global Perspective

by Toby E. Huff

• ISBN13: 9780521170529
• ISBN10: 0521170524
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-11
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This study, beginning with the Dutch-invented telescope of 1608 and then Galileo's discoveries, casts the European advancements in modern science, technology, and economic development into a global framework.

Author Biography

Toby E. Huff is a research associate at Harvard University in the Department of Astronomy and Chancellor Professor Emeritus in Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He has lectured in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and has lived in Malaysia. He is the author of The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West, second edition (Cambridge University Press, 2003); coeditor with Wolfgang Schluchter of Max Weber and Islam (1999), and author of An Age of Science and Revolutions, 1600-1800 (2005).

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Something New Under the Sun
Introduction	p. 3
Inventing the Discovery Machine	p. 22
The New Telescopic Evidence	p. 48
The "Far Seeing Looking Glass" Goes to China	p. 72
The Discovery Machine Goes to the Muslim World	p. 115
Patterns of Education
Three Ideals of Higher Education: Islamic, Chinese, and Western	p. 145
Science Unbound
Infectious Curiosity I: Anatomy and Microbiology	p. 171
Infectious Curiosity II: Weighing the Air and Atmospheric Pressure	p. 209
Infectious Curiosity III: Magnetism and Electricity	p. 234
Prelude to the Grand Synthesis	p. 253
The Path to the Grand Synthesis	p. 267
The Scientific Revolution in Comparative Perspective	p. 292
Epilogue: Science, Literacy, and Economic Development	p. 301
Selected References	p. 321
Index	p. 341
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