The Bright Dark Ages: Comparative and Connective Perspectives

The European 'dark ages' in the millennium 500 to 1500 CE was a bright age of scientific achievements in China, India and the Middle East. The contributors to this volume address the implications of this seminal era of Asian science for comparative and connective science studies. Although such studies have generally adopted a binary perspective focusing on one or another of the Asian (Chinese, Indian, Islamic) civilizations, this study brings them together into a single volume within a wider Eurasian perspective. Moreover, by drawing together historical, philosophical, and sociological dimensions into one volume it promotes a richer understanding of how Eurasian connections and comparisons in the millennium preceding the modern era can illuminate the birth and growth of modern science.

Contributors are Arun Bala, Andrew Brennan, James Robert Brown, George Gheverghese Joseph, Henrik Lagerlund, Norva Y.S. Lo, Roddam Narasimha, Hyunhee Park, Franklin Thomas Perkins, Hans Pols, Kapil Raj, Sundar Sarukkai, Mohd. Hazim Shah, Geir Sigurðsson and Cecilia Wee.

Arun Bala (Ph.D. 1983) is a physicist and philosopher of science who has published numerous studies on globalising history and philosophy of The Scientific Revolution. He is author of The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science and edited Asia, Europe and the Emergence of Modern Science: Knowledge Crossing Boundaries.
Prasenjit Duara, Director of Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and Emeritus Professor, University of Chicago. Among other books he is author of Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (1988), which won the Fairbank Prize (American Historical Association) and Levenson Prize (Association for Asian Studies, USA).