Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden AgeA new and unexpected history of the Dutch pursuit of commerce in the 16th and 17th centuries and how it triggered the Scientific Revolution In this wide-ranging and stimulating book, a leading authority on the history of medicine and science presents convincing evidence that Dutch commerce—not religion—inspired the rise of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harold J. Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his conclusions are fresh and exciting. He uncovers direct links between the rise of trade and commerce in the Dutch Empire and the flourishing of scientific investigation. Cook argues that engaging in commerce changed the thinking of Dutch citizens, leading to a new emphasis on such values as objectivity, accumulation, and description. The preference for accurate information that accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally, wherever the Dutch engaged in trade. Medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science, as reflected in the development of gardens for both pleasure and botanical study, anatomical theaters, curiosity cabinets, and richly illustrated books about nature. Sweeping in scope and original in its insights, this book revises previous understandings of the history of science and ideas. |
From inside the book
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... considered to be the forces that created change, not only in minds but in bodies, and not only in individual persons but in all things. I can only hope that the results produced from this mixed set of historical agendas is helpful to ...
... considered the highest kind of knowledge to be the result of study of the objects (res) of nature. COLLECTING OBJECTS AND SPECIMENS The high value placed on the knowledge that came from acquaintance with objects (kennen) rather than ...
... considered the multitudinous expressions of existing things rather than their underlying unity, a collection of the ''nature of things'' rather than a single ''nature,'' no doubt because Pliny was a polytheist. Pliny therefore included ...
... considered to be interrelated, so that any one object was connected to others by tangled webs of sympathy orantipathy. Works like the occult illustrated romance of the Hypnerotomachia poliphiliof 1499 suggested that the way gardens ...
... considered the matters of fact to be things that held true no matter the qualities of the persons exchanging them, nor the difference of place from which they came or to which they were going. Or to put the case in more modern ...
Contents
1 | |
42 | |
82 | |
Four Commerce and Medicine in Amsterdam | 133 |
Five Truths and Untruths from the Indies | 175 |
Descartes in the Republic | 226 |
Seven Industry and Analysis | 267 |
Eight Gardens of the Indies Transported | 304 |
The Medicine of East Asia | 339 |
Sticking to Simple Things | 378 |
Eleven Conclusions and Comparisons | 410 |
Notes | 417 |
Bibliography | 473 |
Index | 537 |
Other editions - View all
Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age Harold John Cook No preview available - 2007 |