Mott T. Greene, Natural Knowledge in Preclassical Antiquity (1992), is a general survey of preclassical sciences; while O. Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd ed. (1957, reissued 1993), focuses on ancient mathematics and astronomy. The best general history of Greek science is G.E.R. Lloyd, Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle (1970), and Greek Science After Aristotle (1973); Marshall Clagett, Greek Science in Antiquity (1955, reissued 1994), is also of value. G.E.R. Lloyd, Adversaries and Authorities (1996), is a comparative study of Greek and Chinese science. Roman science is treated in William H. Stahl, Roman Science: Origins, Development, and Influence to the Later Middle Ages (1962, reprinted 1978); and Roger French and Frank Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and Influences (1986).
There is no book-length survey of Islāmic science, but A.I. Sabra, “Science, Islamic,” in Joseph R. Strayer (ed.), Dictionary of the Middle Ages (1988), vol. 11, pp. 81–89, is a good short overview. Astronomy and physics are discussed in A.I. Sabra, Optics, Astronomy, and Logic: Studies in Arabic Science and Philosophy (1994); David A. King, Astronomy in the Service of Islam (1993); and Edward Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687 (1994). Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science (1993), compares science in the medieval Islāmic world, China, and the West. A.C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, 2nd rev. ed., 2 vol. (1959, reissued as The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo, 2 vol. in 1, 1995), is still a useful introduction to medieval science. Edward Grant, Physical Science in the Middle Ages (1971); and Marshall Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages (1959, reissued 1979), discuss medieval physics. Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” Science, 155:1203–07 (March 10, 1967), presents an influential argument about medieval attitudes toward nature. Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within (1994), discusses medieval attitudes toward animals. The scientific revolution
The vast literature on the scientific revolution is surveyed in H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (1994). Allen G. Debus, Man and Nature in the Renaissance (1978); and Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (1996), are the best short overviews. Additional surveys include Margaret C. Jacob, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution (1988, reissued 1993), strong on comparative and social issues; David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (1990), a cross section of current scholarship; and A. Rupert Hall, The Scientific Revolution, 1500–1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude, 2nd ed. (1962, reissued 1972), a classic intellectual history. The relationship between science, politics, and society in early modern England has been the subject of numerous important studies, including Robert K. Merton, Science, Technology & Society in Seventeenth Century England (1938, reissued 1993), which argues for a “Puritan spur to science”; while Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626–1660 (1975), presents a case for more radical interest in science in England. Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985); and Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (1994), trace the development of the experimental method. Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry (1991), explores the relationship between art and science in the Renaissance. Physical science and astronomy are discussed in Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (1957, reissued 1994); Thomas S. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (1957, reissued 1985); and Richard S. Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics (1971). Natural history and biology are treated in Martin J.S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Palaeontology, 2nd rev. ed. (1976, reprinted 1985). The links between Hermeticism, magic, and science are explored in Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964, reissued 1991); Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971); and Brian Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (1984). Alchemy is examined in Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton’s Thought (1991); William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (1994); and Pamela H. Smith, The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (1994). Studies of gender and Renaissance science include Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (1985, reissued 1995), an essential starting point; Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1980, reissued 1990); and the controversial work by David F. Noble, A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science (1992). Modern science
Thomas L. Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment (1985), is an excellent survey of 18th-century science. Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society (1971, reprinted with a new introduction, 1984), surveys the development of scientific institutions and communities in Europe and America. Margaret C. Jacob (ed.), The Politics of Western Science, 1640–1990 (1994); and Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly (eds.), Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (1992), are useful introductions to the politics of science. Works on gender and science include Margaret Alic, Hypatia’s Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century (1986), which is strongest on the modern period; Londa L. Schiebinger, Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science (1993); Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine Between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1989, reissued 1993); and Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (1982), and Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940–1972 (1995). Surveys of science in the national and imperial context include Nancy Stepan, Beginnings of Brazilian Science (1976, reissued 1981); Lewis Pyenson, Cultural Imperialism and the Exact Sciences: German Expansion Overseas, 1900–1930 (1985); Daniel R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940 (1988); James R. Bartholomew, The Formation of Science in Japan (1989); and Loren R. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (1993).
The literature on specific sciences since the 18th century is voluminous. The physical sciences are discussed in J.L. Heilbron,