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A history of the book and intellectual property that includes military technology and military secrets. Winner of The Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the Journal of the History of Ideas In today's world of intellectual property disputes, industrial espionage, and book signings by famous authors, one easily loses sight of the historical nature of the attribution and ownership of texts. In Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Pamela Long combines intellectual history with the history of science and technology to explore the culture of authorship. Using classical Greek as well as medieval and Renaissance European examples, L...
Featuring more than 150 treasures from several of the world’s most prestigious collections, Making Marvels explores the vital intersection of art, technology, and political power at the courts of early modern Europe. It was there, from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, that a remarkable outpouring of creativity and learning gave rise to exquisite objects that were at once beautiful works of art and technological wonders. By amassing vast, glittering collections of these ingeniously crafted objects, princes flaunted their wealth and competed for mastery over the known world. More than mere status symbols, however, many of these marvels ushered in significant advancements that have had a lasting influence on astronomy, engineering, and even international politics. Incisive texts by leading scholars situate these works within the rich, complex symbolism of life at court, where science and splendor were pursued with equal vigor and together contributed to a culture of magnificence.
The Meta Incognita Project was initiated to cast new light on the Arctic voyages of Martin Frobisher and their significance for the histories of North America and Britain. Although the Elizabethan venture failed to discover a northwest passage to mines and precious metals, and to establish a colony in the future Canadian Arctic, it left valuable legacies.
* 22 sections cover the entire field of the history of technology and each section summarises the development of its subject from the earliest times to the present day * Written without unnecessary jargon * 2 extensive indexes of Names and Topics * Usefully illustrated with 150 black & white photographs and line drawings to explain key advances `Contain[s] a vast amount of reliable information over a very wide field. It is certainly a work of which I shall myself make frequent use ... it deserves to find a place ... in every reference library.' - Times Higher Education Supplement `The coverage is excellent ... a most valuable single-volume source which for its comprehensiveness and ease of r...
GOLD: History and Genesis of Deposits is the product of an effort by the Society of Economic Geologists to publish materials that will expand knowl edge concerning timely, specific topics important to the study of economic geology and to economic geologists. A volume on gold was selected for a general review-type publication because of the importance of the gold mining industry in the 1980s. The officers and council of the Society of Economic Geologists authorized the preparation of this book on gold in 1981, and Dr. Robert W. Boyle was selected as its author. Dr. Boyle has extensive experience in the study of gold deposits. He has an international reputation and a broad interest and understanding of the gold mining industry, the origin of gold deposits, and the history of gold as a metal and ore from prehistoric times to recent. Dr. Boyle uses important publications on gold deposits as source materials to document the various pathways of geological thought over time to introduce the reader to modern concepts. The book contains a wealth of information concerning gold.
Gives accurate and reliable summaries of the current state of research. It includes entries on philosophers, problems, terms, historical periods, subjects and the cultural context of Renaissance Philosophy. Furthermore, it covers Latin, Arabic, Jewish, Byzantine and vernacular philosophy, and includes entries on the cross-fertilization of these philosophical traditions. A unique feature of this encyclopedia is that it does not aim to define what Renaissance philosophy is, rather simply to cover the philosophy of the period between 1300 and 1650.
The story of the science, the technology, the politics and the military applications of saltpeter - the vital but mysterious substance that governments from the Tudors to the Victorians regarded as an 'inestimable treasure'.
Swiss-born physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541) and his disciples espoused a doctrine they proclaimed as a truly Christian interpretation of nature in chemistry. Drawing upon a mixture of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance sources, they developed a new philosophy that interpreted both macrocosmic and microcosmic events through the personal observations of the chemist and the Divine Grace of the Lord. Until the publication of this book, however, the breadth and vicissitudes of the Paracelsian approach to nature and medicine had been little studied. This volume spans more than a century, providing a rich record of the major interests of the Paracelsian and other chemical philosophers and the conflicts in which they engaged with their contemporaries. It examines chemistry and nature in the Renaissance, the Paracelsian debates, the theories of Robert Fludd, the Helmontian restatement of the chemical philosophy, and many other issues of this transitional era in the history of science. Enhanced with 36 black-and-white illustrations, this well-researched and compellingly related study will fascinate students of the history of science, chemistry, and medicine.
Using a combination of historical, archaeological, and scientific data is not an uncommon research practice. Rarely found, however, is a more overt critical consideration of how these sources of information relate to each other, or explicit attempts at developing successful strategies for interdisciplinary work. The authors in this volume provide such critical perspectives, examining materials from a wide range of cultures and time periods to demonstrate the added value of combining in their research seemingly incompatible or even contradictory sources. Case studies include explorations of the symbolism of flint knives in ancient Egypt, the meaning of cuneiform glass texts, medieval metallurgical traditions, and urban archaeology at industrial sites. This volume is noteworthy, as it offers novel contributions to specific topics, as well as fundamental reflections on the problems and potentials of the interdisciplinary study of the human past.