Imprint: Viking
Published: 24/03/2022
ISBN: 9780241394090
Length: 464 Pages
Dimensions: 240mm x 36mm x 162mm
Weight: 700g
RRP: £25.00
A major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day that explodes the myth that science began in Europe - instead celebrating how scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific were integral to this very human story
We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But this is wrong. Science is not, and has never been, a uniquely European endeavour.
Copernicus relied on mathematical techniques borrowed from Arabic and Persian texts. When Newton set out the laws of motion, he relied on astronomical observations made in Asia and Africa. When Darwin was writing On the Origin of Species, he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopaedia. And when Einstein was studying quantum mechanics, he was inspired by the Bengali physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose. Horizons pushes beyond Europe, exploring the ways in which scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific fit into the history of science, and arguing that it is best understood as a story of global cultural exchange.
Challenging both the existing narrative and our perceptions of revered individuals, above all this is a celebration of the work of scientists neglected by history. Among many others, we meet Graman Kwasi, the seventeenth-century African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria, Hantaro Nagaoka, the nineteenth-century Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom, and Zhao Zhongyao, the twentieth-century Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter (but whose American colleague received the Nobel prize).
Scientists today are quick to recognise the international nature of their work. In this ambitious and revisionist history, James Poskett reveals that this tradition goes back much further than we think.
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'This treasure trove of a book puts the case persuasively and compellingly that modern science did not develop solely in Europe. Hugely important' Jim Al-Khalili
'Brilliant. Revolutionary and revelatory' Alice Roberts
'Remarkable. Challenges almost everything we know about science in the West' Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in 12 Maps
'Perspective-shattering' Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller, 'Editor's Choice'
Imprint: Viking
Published: 24/03/2022
ISBN: 9780241394090
Length: 464 Pages
Dimensions: 240mm x 36mm x 162mm
Weight: 700g
RRP: £25.00
Superb . . . Poskett rightly highlights the shamefully overlooked contributions of Indian, Chinese and Japanese scientists
A fundamental retelling of the story of science . . . Poskett deftly blends the achievements of little-known figures into the wider history of science . . . brims with clarity
European scientists for centuries served the political goals of empire building, which was based on slave trading, military power, oppression and violence . . . Poskett hopes for a future where the historic truth about how scientific progress has been made is universally accepted, where all cultures are valued, and where global scientific collaboration unleashes the creativity to solve problems such as climate change
Horizons shows that the story of science has always been a planetary one: a non-linear process of cross-fertilisation, competition, cooperation and conflict . . . What makes the book so engrossing is that Poskett's grasp of historical contexts is as firm as his scientific knowledge
This treasure trove of a book puts the case persuasively and compellingly that modern science did not develop solely in Europe. Hugely important
Brilliant . . . In this revolutionary and revelatory book, James Poskett not only gives us a truly worldwide history of science, but explains how international connections have stimulated scientific advances through time
Poskett's book is invaluable, an important and timely reminder that the world we live in has never been small or unknown, but that sharing knowledge, as well as credit, and working together, is the key to a better future
From palatial Aztec botanic gardens to Qing Dynasty evolutionary theories, Horizons upends traditional accounts of the history of science, showing how curiosity and intellectual exploration was, and is, a global phenomenon
Remarkable. Challenges almost everything we know about science in the West
This perspective-shattering book challenges our Eurocentric narrative by spotlighting the work of historically neglected scientists