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 Harold J. Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his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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... famous work of Thomas Kuhn and others in the late 1960s, such views have been amended by a variety of arguments adapted from sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, which have been advanced by historians to explain why one ...
... famous sketch of a hare, drawing of a stag beetle, or portrayal of ''The great piece of turf'' of 1503.45 By the sixteenth century, the fine detail of facial expression, draped fabric, architectural form, landscape background, tools ...
... famous printer of Venice Aldus Manutius brought out a Greek edition of Dioscorides in 1499, and this was followed by a reliable Latin translation by the French medical humanist Jean de la Ruelle, with a commentary expanding and ...
... famous Hippocrates. As a result, physicians came to write detailed descriptive notes about the conditions they saw (case ''histories''), often sending them to one another in letters, and sometimes collecting them together and publishing ...
... young people played in the morning, passed the afternoons quietly, and told stories in the evening. Alberti wrote of grottoes and gardens as part of his famous book Worldly Goods and the Transformations of Objectivity 25.
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 |