Description
Book SynopsisBrings alchemy out of the shadows and restores it to its important place in human history and culture. By surveying what alchemy was and how it began, developed, and overlapped with a range of ideas and pursuits, this title illuminates the practice.
Trade Review"The Secrets of Alchemy comes closer than any other single work to explaining the grounds-rational and empirical, as well as religious and wishful-for alchemy's longevity. Lawrence M. Principe's delightful writing style brings to life a depth of learning matched by few in the field." (Nature) "An elegant, readable book, packed with information and revelation." (Anthony Grafton, Science) "Lawrence M. Principe has long been at the vanguard of scholars who seek to show that alchemists were really early chemists, not blindly struggling to turn substances into gold but operating, like scientists today, within an intellectual framework that guided their practical work. In The Secrets of Alchemy, an elegantly written summary of two decades of his own research, Principe describes this framework." (Wall Street Journal)"
