The Invention of Science, David Wootton
The Invention of Science, David Wootton
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The Invention of Science
A New History of the Scientific Revolution

Author: David Wootton

Narrator: James Langton

Unabridged: 22 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/26/2016

Synopsis

A groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our worldWe live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today, science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history.The Invention of Science goes back five hundred years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently, but came to intersect and create a new world view. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts—Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe—whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition.From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wootton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge ideas of truth, knowledge, progress. Ultimately, he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization—and the birth of the modern world we know.

About David Wootton

David Wootton is the Anniversary Professor at the University of York. His previous books include Paolo Sarpi, Bad Medicine, and Galileo. He gave the Raleigh Lectures at the British Academy in 2008, the Carlyle Lectures at the University of Oxford in 2014, and the Benedict Lecture at Boston University in 2014.

About James Langton

James Langton is an actor and narrator who has performed many voice-overs and narrated numerous audiobooks, including the international bestseller The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud by Julia Navarro, Fire Storm by Andrew Lane, and An Old Betrayal by Charles Finch. He has won multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards for his work in narration. As a voice-over artist, he has worked with a host of industrial and commercial clients including Geico, Johnson&Johnson, and ask.com. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002. Langton was born in York, England, and is now based in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mark on January 17, 2016

I was so looking forward to liking this book. But in the end, I did not really warm to it. I do not say this lightly, and it even takes me some courage to admit it. Why so? Because the history of ideas is a subject close to my heart, and I wrote a longish essay at university about the development of......more

Goodreads review by Justin on July 17, 2020

This is probably a very important book to read if you're a philosopher of science who thinks that the theories of phlogiston and evolution are of equal validity. Of course, those people do not exist. This is clearly a failure of editing, agenting, and a triumph of misleading marketing. This book is......more

Goodreads review by Steven on August 06, 2016

Simply one of the best treatments of the history and philosophy of science I've read. An exploration of how science developed, what tools and cultural conditions made it possible, and how and why it has progressed. It is also presents a very clear understanding of what science is and why it works fo......more

Goodreads review by Liviu on January 02, 2017

another book I read across time and finished the last few pages in these two free days after the New Year - dense, requiring effort (both to understand the prose occasionally and to understand the arguments) and one I wouldn't recommend for a novice reader in its subject (The Scientific Revolution a......more

Goodreads review by Brian on October 06, 2016

This is no lightweight book - both literally and metaphorically. It packs in nearly 600 pages of decidedly small print, and manages to assign about 10 per cent of these simply to deciding what is meant by a 'scientific revolution' (the subtitle is 'a new history of the scientific revolution'). While......more

Quotes

“Perceptive, thought-provoking, deeply erudite, and beautifully written.” Nature

“A fantastic revisionist history, an intellectual feat…It’s utterly refreshing to read a grand, whooping narrative that is also exhaustively researched. It will, I am certain, become a landmark in the discipline of the history of science.” Financial Times (London)

“[Wootton’s] assembly and interpretation of evidence is painstaking and convincing, at least to the non-specialist…Because he is not shackled by the conventions of scientific writing, he can afford to be entertaining, and he is: The Invention of Science is full of countless interesting asides.” Times of Higher Education (London)

“Builds a powerful, thoroughly fascinating argument ripe for debate.” Amazon.com

“Vibrant and impressive…A marvel of expositional clarity.” Christian Science Monitor

“Wootton hails science as a uniquely progressive force, one opening a truly reliable access to reality, not just one more socially constructed perspective. A bracing rediscovery of the marvel that is science.” Booklist (starred review)

“A superbly lucid examination of a dramatic revolution in human thought that deserves a place on the shelf with Thomas Kuhn and David Deutsch.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This substantive narrative of human progress is engaging and well constructed for the general science or history reader.” Publishers Weekly

“James Langton[’s] pleasant British accent; light, informal tone; and lively pace keep the audiobook from bogging down….His great strength is his ability to translate Wootton’s evident joy in his subject into an engaging, even friendly and upbeat, tone that still respects the seriousness of the material.” AudioFile

Awards

  • Cundill Prize in Historical Literature
  • Financial Times Best Book of the Year
  • Amazon Best Book of the Month
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