HSCI 3814 || Intro to History of Science
This course meets with HSci 1814. All basic requirements are the same. Your work on the Map Project, Historical Simulation and original texts should be deeper and more thorough, reflecting the course level. In addition, you must read and review a historical narrative or original text (approved by me). Evaluation is distributed as follows:
Complete and submit the evaluation form.
Book Analysis Guidelines
~2250 wds (~8-11 pp.?)
Remember that your primary aim is to demonstrate your understanding of and skills in historical interpretation.
First, briefly summarize the book. Be concise, yet complete. Highlight especially noteworthy elements.
Articulate the historical perspective of the scientist or principal character. As in the Map Project, discuss how the person's work reflects his or her culture and biographical details.
Most important, relate the book to class. Look for meaningful similarities with other cases in class and discuss their significance. Also consider this episode in the context of themes from class (technology, religion, motivation, cultural contexts, etc.).
Be prepared to profile informally what someone might learn from the book in ~3 minutes to other class members on an appropriate date: perhaps one detail that illustrates a general idea, and/or your favorite factoid and its relevance.
Perhaps check with Douglas for a book closely related to your field of study.
The following are also recommended and pre-approved [X denotes books already claimed]:
X David Lewis, We, The Navigators
how the Pacific Islanders cross the ocean without maps
Colin Ronan & Joseph Needham,
The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China (any volume)
X Mark Plotkin, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice
a modern ethnobotanist seeks to understand native medicine
X Roberto González, Zapotec Science:
Farming and Food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca
X Pamela Smith & Paula Findlen (eds.), Merchants and Marvels
"commerce, science and art in early modern Europe"
Benjamin Woolley, The Queen's Conjurer
mystical mathematician John Dee
Stephen Pumfrey, Latitude
— the story of William Gilbert and his magnetic philosophy and investigations
X John Robert Christianson, On Tycho's Island
life in an early astronomical observatory
X Jean Hamburger, The Diary of William Harvey
imagined personal reminiscences of one of biology's heroes
Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter
getting to know the revolutionary personally
X Lisa Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits
industry and networking fueling England's Scientific Revolution
Lisa Jardine, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke
from surveyor to microscopist to instrument maker and natural philosopher
X Michael Hunter, Robert Boyle
the man of gas-law fame
X Michael White, Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer
what you didn't know about the great physicist
X Four plays: Ben Jonson, The Alchemists and The Magnetick Lady; William Shakespeare, The Tempest, and Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso
17th-century dramas on science
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You might integrate these into an additional simulation project:
Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-mechanical (1682 edition with replies to Linus, Hobbes and continued experiments)
Steve Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump
Isaac Newton, Opticks (1704)
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X Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body
Plato, Timaeus -- background to much Renaissance science
X Agricola [Georg Bauer], De re metallica [On Metals] -- esp. for chemists
Robert Fludd, collected writings -- Renaissance perspective will seem bizarre
Walter Gilbert, De Magnete [On the Magnet] -- groundbreaking work on experiment
William Harvey, De Generatione -- his other great work
Transactions of the Royal Society for any one year, up to 1700 -- survey of "science".
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