The Invention of Science

A New History of the Scientific Revolution

By: David Wootton

Narrated by: James Langton

Length: 22 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

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.

Must read for many reasons

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

New Postmodern Historiography of History o Science

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

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.

Pretty Much the Whole Ball of Wax

For a non-scientist, and that's most of us, getting a grip on science seems alternatively vital and too difficult to attempt. We want to know what science is, yet science itself seems reserved for experts. Apparently in order to understand it you have to master it.

But Wootton magisterially demonstrates that science as we know it required grappling, mistakes, gargantuan misconceptions and strenuous argument to be lodged where it sits today, ostensibly implacable if not entirely unapproachable. In fact, science doesn't "know" today what it will "know" tomorrow. It's a set of procedures, undertakings, theories tested, retested and refined into edgy, always pulsing, custom. It's not truth. It's one pathway through the human mystery. Its inquiries never culminate. Its watchword is always "Behold!"

That's why it's hard. And that's how it entices us. It doesn't bow to mystery, nor does it ever claim to entirely vanquish it.

Wootton is a deeply learned, subtle, witty and profoundly considerate writer -- none of his chapters are too long, for one thing. More importantly, he's both graceful and honest. His citations are scrupulous, his claims always supported right before your eyes. He gives you the tools you need to expand on or refute what he says.

It's a life-changing book. Science at its heart is thinking in earnest, imagination followed by application. Scientists are warriors. They want certainty and are not entirely comfortable when they invariably have to settle for less. This book will show you that fighting for what seems to you to be accurate will nearly always prove to be worth it. For even if you are wrong, you are suddenly on a higher path toward an understanding you didn't beforehand even know was possible.

One of the great, essential books of my lifetime.

Informative but tedious

This book reminded me of the old adage “I wrote you a long letter because I didn’t take the time to write a short one.” While informative about the works of those who brought about the dawn of science in the western world, it’s length and detail made it tedious listening as an audio book. A condensed version would have been far more enjoyable. I thought this book would be focused on the scientific discoveries and their significance to society. But instead it seemed to focus on the vocabulary of science and the origin of specific words. It was not what I expected and became tedious to finish.

So so

I expected the book to tell how scientific inventions came about. This was more an ancient history of what science was and was not for most of human history. The word fact wasn’t something people talked about for most of human history. So this was interesting but didn’t hold my attention as I had hoped.

well done

Author had amazing range and an interesting, different take. Loved the ending, talking about Montagne.

A boring argument about semantics

It's all about the definition of "modern scientific revolution." A very boring and pointless story mixed with science trivia

Tedious, dryly academic

Would you try another book from David Wootton and/or James Langton?

I'd be very careful about trying another book from Wooton.

Has The Invention of Science turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, I'm happy to read other history books on science.

What character would you cut from The Invention of Science?

The author. He's there too much, lecturing us on every detail. I'd prefer to have the people making discoveries be the caracters.

Any additional comments?

This book may be useful for an academic who wants every detail drawn out in excruciating detail, but it's painfully slow for me.