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 Harold J. Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his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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... religion or the Reformation to explain the rise of science—as is often done—is inadequate, by sketching in the ... religious establishment. Some thoughts of a comparative kind, showing how the Dutch examples can be generalized into ...
... religious piety, not only purchasing great horses, fine armor, luxurious clothes, and beautiful tapestries, but they were also acquiring well-crafted furniture, linens, antiquities, painting and sculpture, books and manuscripts, strange ...
... religious relics: ''a worship did belong unto them besides the adoration due unto the Saint worshipped in them, calling this worship Relative, and the other Objective.''48 Even if the word was not often used in the period, we ourselves ...
... religious veneration or fine art.79 By the 1560s, however, efforts to situate the growing amount of accumulated naturalia in rooms of their own (''cabinets'') apart from other goods can be clearly discerned.80 One of the first known ...
... religion must be evaluated according to different standards.) The book and its argument proved to be very popular in the sixteenth century. Michel de Montaigne's translation of it into French (the Théologie naturelle of 1569) is the ...
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 |