Science in the Middle Ages / Edition 1

by David C. Lindberg

Overview

Despite the intensive research of the past quarter century, there still is no single book that examines all major aspects of the medieval scientific enterprise in depth. This illustrated volume is meant to fill that gap. In it sixteen leading scholars address themselves to topics central to their research, providing as full an account of medieval science as current knowledge permits. Although the book is definitive, it is also introductory, for the authors have directed their chapters to a beginning audience of diverse readers, including undergraduates, scholars specializing in other fields, and the interested lay reader.

The book is not encylopedic, for it does not attempt to provide all relevant factual data; rather, it attempts to interpret major developments in each of the disciplines that made up the medieval scientific world. Data are not absent, but their function is to support and illustrate generalizations about the changing shape of medieval science. The editor, David C. Lindberg, has written a Preface in which he discusses the growth of scholarship in this field in the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226482330
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	03/15/1980
Series:	Chicago History of Science and Medicine
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	596
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

David C. Lindberg is professor of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin. His numerous publications include Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Science, Technology, and Economic Progress in the Early Middle Ages
Brian Stock
2. The Transmission of Greek and Arabic Learning in the West
David C. Lindberg
3. The Philosophical Setting of Medieval Science
William A. Wallace, O.P.
4. The Institutional Setting: The Universities
Pearl Kibre and Nancy G. Siraisi
5. Mathematics
Michael S. Mahoney
6. The Science of Weights
Joseph E. Brown
The Science of Motion
John E. Murdoch and Edith D. Sylla
8. Cosmology
Edward Grant
9. Astronomy
Olaf Pedersen
10. The Science of Optics
David C. Lindberg
11. The Science of Matter
Robert P. Multhauf
12. Medicine
Charles H. Talbot
13. Natural History
Jerry Stannard
14. The Nature, Scope, and Classification of the Sciences
James A. Weisheipl, O.P.
15. Science and Magic
Bert Hansen
Suggestions for Further Reading
Notes on Contributors
Index