Investigations of Nature - by Domenico Bertoloni Meli

About the Book

An Introduction to the Study of Nature from the Printing Press to the Enlightenment

Book Synopsis

Investigations of Nature takes us on a guided tour through history, when voyages of exploration and exploitation were tied to technological advances in navigation and warfare; religious unity was broken with huge political, economic, and intellectual consequences; and the new art of printing led to an explosion of information. After a brief introduction, each part of this book--from sections on the Renaissance to the Epistemic Revolution to the Enlightenment--opens with a chapter discussing a defining characteristic: geography and navigation characterize the Renaissance as the age of discovery and colonialism; astronomy and optics characterize the Epistemic Revolution as the age of new instruments, such as the telescope; and universal gravity in Newton's time characterizes the Enlightenment as the age of quantification, with welcome and unwelcome consequences and reflection on the status of our theories. Heavily illustrated and with a practical historiographic guide and bibliography for further reading, this book is an indispensable teaching tool for anyone seeking an accessible survey of the Renaissance or the Enlightenment.

Review Quotes

Investigations of Nature positions Newton's discoveries as the start of a series of debates and refinements that took place over the eighteenth century rather than a culmination. The organization is great. Each chapter is broken into extremely readable sections, and the symmetry among the three main divisions of the book is a marvel.--Craig Martin, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

There is no other scholar like Bertoloni Meli who can claim to have done groundbreaking research in the history of mathematics, mechanics, biology, and medicine, and who can also claim to have opened new avenues of research in the history of scientific instruments, lexicology, and iconology. The author's extraordinary erudition and historiographical acumen shine through on every page of a textbook that is accessible to teachers and students and equally valuable to professional historians.--Niccolò Guicciardini, Università degli Studi di Milano

Bertoloni Meli's presentation offers unexpected juxtapositions and up-to-date interpretations from the latest scholarship that give even the scholarly reader new understanding of a familiar period.--Anita Guerrini, Oregon State University

About the Author

Domenico Bertoloni Meli is provost professor in history and philosophy of science and medicine at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has received several fellowships and awards, including a Wellcome Fellowship at Cambridge University, a Dibner Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.