Science and the Secrets of Nature

In this extraordinary interpretation of medieval European culture, William Eamon draws on history, theories of the sociology of communication, and literature to show how science derives from magic: the sequence of events that a magical or alchemical experiment involves unfolds in the same way as a scientific test, or even a recipe. The transmission of such knowledge through books, letters, and speech allowed science to grow and to transform the world, drawing Europe from the Dark Ages to the modern era. William Eamon's look at arcane and even forbidden texts will be of special interest to fans of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.