The Invention of Science

A New History of the Scientific Revolution

By: David Wootton

Narrated by: James Langton

A groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world.

We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history.

The Invention of Science goes back 500 years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts - Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe - whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition.

From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wootton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge ideas of truth, knowledge, progress. Ultimately he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization - and the birth of the modern world we know.

©2015 David Wootton (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Must read for many reasons

this is a must read for history and science nerds both, and worth recommending to others.

Good but too much

Excellent book. Great way of looking at science. My only issue was its length. I felt as if the author kept repeating themselves. This would probably be a better book in the abridged version. If that doesn’t exist, however, it is still well worth the listen.

A detailed and persuasive set of arguments

Loved it. It assessed problems with both the history and philosophy of science, as promulgated by other modern scholars. Look for this richly detailed and covertly argued work to become a classic in the field.

The narration was flawless.

New Postmodern Historiography of History o Science

Highly recommended textbook on Historiography of Scientific Thinking & Dialogue with Posmodern Turn in History.

Fascinating history of science

David Wootton uses historical dates and facts to track the actual place in time, when science and scientific methodology began.