Abstract
Voyaging in Strange Seas is a beautifully written, comprehensive account of the development of early modern science. It offers a history of the Scientific Revolution in Europe, which saw the emergence of new approaches to studying and experimenting upon the world, and a marked acceleration in the pace and communication of such scholarship. But the book offers much more than an account of events over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Starting in the Middle Ages and concluding in the nineteenth century, Knight offers a magisterial survey of the emergence of scientific thought and practice in Europe.
Voyaging is not, therefore, strictly a work of maritime history. Its title, a metaphor for scientific enquiry, is drawn from Wordsworth’s poem The Prelude, but the book is nevertheless set within the context of overseas exploration: ‘the long revolution that gave us modern science’, Knight emphasizes, ‘began with the ocean voyages of the 1480s and ‘90s’ (p. 1). Voyaging ranges far beyond this in scope, but a reader looking for maritime history would find plenty of interest. The sea is very much part of the story that Knight tells.
David Knight is Professor Emeritus at Durham University, and an eminent scholar of the history and philosophy of science. Voyaging in Strange Seas is aimed at a non-specialist readership, and it exemplifies the best in writing in an accessible and readable way: it is clearly the fruit of a long and distinguished career as a researcher and as a teacher. The book is particularly impressive for its ability to weave together the complex and diverse strands of the history of science into a coherent and easily digestible narrative. The 13 chapters are organized thematically, taking us on a journey from medieval mapping through to the development of the modern scientific disciplines. The chapters are complemented by no fewer than 55 illustrations, which beautifully exemplify the subjects discussed.
Each chapter offers a detailed account of its chosen theme, beginning with the ‘Deep Roots of Modern Science’ in the Middle Ages, and then moving on to discuss the elaboration of new scientific methods under Bacon and Descartes, the development of astronomy and mathematics, and then the emergence of chemistry as an experimental science (Chapters 2–5). Later parts of the book examine the transition to modern medicine, the extent to which scholars engaged with artisanal knowledge, the development of natural history, and the growth of public participation in science (Chapters 8–10, 12). Interspersed in between these are chapters discussing the contested relationship between science and religion, the significance of new forms of sociable association such as scientific societies, and the eighteenth-century voyages of exploration, which in Knight’s terms constituted ‘big science’ (Chapters 6–7, 11). Readers interested specifically in maritime history might focus on the discussions of cartography and the perception of water in Chapter 2, the development of astronomy and navigation in Chapter 4 (‘ocean voyages’, the book emphasizes on p. 60, ‘became a metaphor for science’), and Chapter 11 on voyages of exploration. But one of the main arguments of the book is about the interrelated nature of knowledge: as moderns, we all too easily compartmentalize what we know into separate categories, but the long history of science demonstrates that the different kinds of knowledge were mutually influential.
Indeed, the quantity and range of topics covered is almost breath-taking. To take an example from Chapter 2, a single paragraph discusses the advances in printing, the emergence of books about astronomy, and then calendar reform (pp. 28–29). This quick succession of subjects could be bewildering, but Knight’s lucid and engaging prose carries us through seamlessly, successfully imparting a holistic understanding of how apparently separate developments were in fact interconnected and even mutually dependent. The thematic organization does mean that the book at times has a slightly repetitive feel, because the same characters and subjects recur in different places. Chapters 3 and 4 both discuss Galileo and Descartes, for example. But this is not a major problem – and indeed, may even be a benefit for readers less well acquainted with the subject. Given the breadth and scope of the book, the slight repetition serves to underline key points, and allows Knight to build up complexity gradually within his narrative.
The book also counters some common misconceptions about the history of science and the development of knowledge. One such relates to assumptions about the relationship between science and religion. Chapter 6 opens with a strong rebuttal to ‘the myth that science and religion have been endlessly at war’ (p. 106), explaining that modern assumptions about this are a product of the nineteenth century. For most of science’s history, Knight explains, religion, or piety, was important as a stimulus to enquiry, and was not necessarily an impediment to it. Science, after all, is never value-free.
Every rewarding study inspires further questions. The book is very much written from the perspective of European scholars – or, in other words, the men who formed a scholarly elite in Europe. It would have been interesting to read more through the course of the book about the gendering of early modern science. Chapter 12 gives due attention to well-known examples of eighteenth-century female participation, but this might have been balanced in earlier chapters with discussions of, for example, the significance of being a gentleman to science and the conceptualization of truth and trustworthiness. Further, the ‘Global perspective’ promised by Chapter 11 might also consider science from a non-European point of view, rather than simply discussing exploration as if the centre of knowledge-making was only located within Europe. But in a book already as detailed, as complex, and as wide-ranging as this, it would be churlish to demand even more. These, perhaps, could be subjects for a sequel, which I hope Professor Knight might be encouraged to write.