The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution

An Amazon Best Book of December 2015: Here’s a big, fat history of science (spanning from 1572 to 1704) with a very clear thesis: that science, and thus the world, entered the modern age during this precise span. Wooton, the Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York, explores primary texts and detailed history to build his argument that Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe’s discovery of a new star in 1572 started a scientific revolution, and that Isaac Newton’s 1704 publication of Opticks sealed it. What happened in between was a series of discoveries—of gunpowder, movable type, the New World, etc.—that altered our perception of what is and, through the Newtonian Revolution, opened our minds to what might be. The sheer size of the book allows readers to jump around between essays, but taken as a whole The Invention of Science builds a powerful, thoroughly fascinating argument ripe for debate. --Chris Schluep