Science and Polity in France: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Years |
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Science and Polity in France: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Years
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by Charles Coulston Gillispie
Sales Rank: 778626
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$90.00
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 664 pages
Published by: Princeton University Press July 6, 2004
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0691115419
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0691115412
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.4 x 2 inches
Weighs: 2.6 pounds
Jed Z. Buchwald, American Scientist
"Scientists will enjoy this book for its insight into the life of science at a critical period".
Product Review
P.N. Furbank New York Review of Books : Gillispie is, clearly, thoroughly at home in the language and concepts of the sciences: of pure mathematics, chemistry, mathematical physics and astronomy, biology and natural history, not to mention engineering, mining, and agronomy. He is also a master of lucid explanation, so far as explanation to the ignorant can go, as well being the teller of some highly gripping tales; and he has an admirable, logically taut, often quietly witty, prose style.
Nature : This volume can be read as either a saga of science or a series of short, loosely interconnected stories. The author is at his best when he is reporting colorful episodes, portraying a character, disentangling a plot or dissecting an institution.
Joseph W. Konvitz American Historical Review : This review cannot do justice to a magisterial work that illuminates a critical phase in the historical relationship between thought and action, the classical theme of humanism. . . . As a work of synthesis and interpretation, it is written with the clarity, elegance, and insight the subject deserves.
Jed Z. Buchwald American Scientist : So thoroughly does Gillispie know his subject, that his account reads more like Thomas Carlyle's gripping The French Revolution: A History than a dry and bloodless effort of modern scholarship. Like Carlyle, Gillispie seems to feel what his subjects felt, to enter with them into the stresses, difficulties and challenges of the moment. And Gillispie's history, like Carlyle's, must be read as a journey through the period, with all its vicissitudes, and not as a linear narrative or as a monograph aiming to prove a point of interest to only a few specialists.
Eric A. Arnold, Jr. History : Gillispie's argument is simple and elegant . . . the research is flawless, and every page exudes erudition. . . . He has left few--if any--stones unturned in accomplishing this magisterial work.
tro Corsi, "British Journal for the History of Science : [This] new book is a superbly researched, challenging and provocative reconstruction of the decades from 1770 to 1820 when, in Gillispie's words, France could boast 'a greater scientific population than the rest of Europe put together.'. . . Here . . . is impeccable scholarship as well as clarity of style, footnotes opening up scores of research projects, and a few of the idiosyncrasies for which Gillispie is famous and which, it should be mentioned do not fall into an easy hero-worship mood. . . . [T]he book offers the best account written so far of science during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic years.
Jessica Riskin Modern History : This much anticipated, magisterial second volume of Gillispies's Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime . . . [is] a powerful chronicle of the social engagements of the natural sciences during the pivotal moment when they first took on modern political responsibilities.
Reader Reviews
On the eve of the Revolution, France was the world's leader in scientific research and Paris was the scientific capital of the world. Under the Ancien Regime, a combination of fine educational institutions, largely sponsored by the Catholic Church and almost inadvertantly providing good training in mathematics and other important disciplines, and government support for institutions that supported science led to the broadest and deepest scientific community in Europe. Gillispie provides a careful and superbly documented chronological account of what happened to French science during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. This is not, strictly speaking, a conventional history of science. While Gillispie does discuss important scientific developments, his focus is on the institutional history of French science and the role played by the French scientific community is larger affairs. Given the relative generosity of the French state towards science, and the prominent role of French scientists in the Enlightenment movement that sought to supplant traditional social and political institutions, Gillispie is particularly interested in the relation between government and the scientific community during this turbulent period. Gillispie covers the treatment of French science by the various revolutionary governments and by Napoleon's governments. The history of major scientific institutions is covered well, as is the treatment of educational policy. The careers of a number of important French scientists and mathematicians; Laviosier, Condorcet, Monge, Laplace, Berthollet, etc., are followed carefully. Gillispie pays particular attention to the role of scientists in politics and government. Several French scientists, including some who had benefited considerably from the policies of the Ancien Regime, played important roles in revolutionary and Napoleonic governments. Gillispie looks also at the major developments in French science, which he sees as evolving from a descriptive, "encyclopedic" mode to a more experimental, rigorous, and quantitative "positivist" mode. Examples include the development of comparative morphology by the great anatomist Cuvier and other important French biologists, the later emergence of physiology as a experimental science independent of medicine, the increasingly clinically oriented and empirical nature of medical training and practice, and the mathematization of physics. Despite all the political stress of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, French governments continued their support of science and French predominance in science lasted for decades after 1815. This book is deep, broad, written well, and has excellent references. A bonus is Gillispie's well considered and insightful comments on key features of the Revolution.
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Science and Polity in France: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Years
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Price: $90.00
Updated on 6-21-2008.
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