The most recommended books on the scientific revolution

Shapin makes the audacious claim that there never really was a scientific revolution in Early Modern Europe, despite the fact that “the scientific revolution” has been a central organizing idea in the history of science and the history of Western culture more generally.

His provocative book provides a useful and engaging assessment of the utility of the concept of “the scientific revolution” for making sense of developments in the history of science.  He challenges us to think about the place of radical changes in the history of science, and whether the claims scientists make about such changes are merely rhetorical constructions.

Despite Shapin’s arguments, I am inclined to think something very significant happened in the sciences in the 16th and 17th Centuries, something that deserves to be called “revolutionary”. But Shapin’s book will certainly make readers reflect on what they mean by scientific revolution.

This is a trilogy of historical fiction about, among many other things, the invention of the modern monetary system and the Scientific Revolution. Yes, it’s a heavy lift, as it’s nearly three thousand pages long, but it’s an incredible read. And if you want to get a sense of the sheer weirdness of the early days of science—both the people involved in it, as well as the ideas that they were playing with—these books are absolutely fantastic.

We are living in a time when ideology, myth, superstition, and ignorance seem to have more influence than ever in shaping our future.

This excellent and important book by Shawn Otto explains the forces (political and economic) at work that are aimed at undermining the role that knowledge and rational empirical evidence might play in making rational public policy decisions. This includes the effort to weaken the role that science might ideally play in helping us to address real-world challenges.

As one who studies and seeks to assess disaster preparedness, response, and mitigation, I have come to believe this “war” on science holds the potential to give birth to ever greater and more expensive (especially in terms of human costs) disasters.  

No better overall treatment of the Scientific Revolution during the 17th century is available for the reader who would encounter this material for the first time.

I used this book as a major text in my survey course on the history of modern science. The author also wrote arguably the leading biography of Isaac Newton.

Though I have been a scientist for nearly all of my life, as a student and as a professional, not until I read this book did I understand what an amazing human activity science is. I had never imagined a world without the word or practice of “science” or even “scientist,” as I do now because of this captivating book.

Wootton’s book is more than a history of how humankind invented and developed one of its most powerful tools. It also reveals the many simply exquisite workings of that tool over the centuries. After pondering its many remarkable revelations, interconnections, and insights, even as a scientist, my appreciation of the significance of science and scientists in the world has re-blossomed.

I have always loved books where the author tries to squeeze the entire world into a few short pages. Carolyn Merchant starts her extraordinary book with the observation that women and nature are often associated with one another—the nurturing mother—then launches into an argument about how the exploitation of the Earth and the domination of women have the same root causes: capitalism, but also patriarchy.

Along the way, I learned about witches, old ideas of magic, and how mining in Europe was once considered sacrilege, a violation of the Earth. After reading this book, I’ll never see science or history in quite the same way.

If you know anyone who still holds on to the belief that science can operate in a political vacuum, please thrust this book upon them! In 1673, a brave philosopher called Francois Poullain de la Barre publicly observed that he saw no reason why women could not be treated as the equals of men in all spheres of influence, including science. The Mind has no Sex, he declared! In this wonderfully readable book on the history of women in science, Londa Schiebinger shows us just how that belief played out. Track the jaw-dropping arrogance of science’s male gatekeepers as they systematically used every trick in their power to exclude women, weaponising their biology against them (Blame the Brain!), demeaning and downgrading their annoyingly evident talents. This book will make you angry – and so it should!

Webster’s book is one of the best assessments of psychoanalysis.

Freud persistently claimed that psychoanalysis was a serious science. It met with hostility because it had insulted the world: by emphasizing the influence of the Unconscious on our behaviour and the role of sexuality in human life. Naturally, Freud’s claims came under scrutiny.

Webster criticizes psychoanalysis as "one of the most subtle attempts to use reason in a magical manner." Psychoanalysis is not explanatory and protects itself against refutations. Webster traces the history of the psychoanalytic movement.

The book is excellent because of Webster’s grasp of primary and secondary literature, his lucid prose, and his understanding of Freud’s influence. My book also comes to the conclusion that psychoanalysis is not some kind of physics of the psyche.    

Freud has had a massive influence on Western culture: he created the "psychological human." People interpret slips of the tongue, strange dreams, or neurotic behaviour almost automatically in Freudian terms. Freud never wrote a textbook on psychoanalysis.

In these lectures, which were held at the University of Vienna during World War I, he presented the full range of his theories and observations. It covers Freudian slips, dreams, neuroses, and sexuality. (The unfinished Outline of Psychoanalysis, 1938, includes the Id, Ego, and Superego.)

Freud is a very persuasive and stylish writer who presents his theory as if it were a natural science, comparable to physics. He claims that his contemporaries were hostile to psychoanalysis because of its explosive revelations about human nature. He explains why his theory allegedly completed the Copernican revolution. Freud describes his findings and sets them in a cultural context.