Search results for ""Author David Knight""

An ambitious, landmark history of the Scientific Revolution, from the age of Columbus to the age of Cook In 1492 Columbus set out across the Atlantic; in 1776 American colonists declared their independence. Between these two events old authorities collapsed—Luther’s Reformation divided churches, and various discoveries revealed the ignorance of the ancient Greeks and Romans. A new, empirical worldview had arrived, focusing now on observation, experiment, and mathematical reasoning. This engaging book takes us along on the great voyage of discovery that ushered in the modern age. David Knight, a distinguished historian of science, locates the Scientific Revolution in the great era of global oceanic voyages, which became both a spur to and a metaphor for scientific discovery. He introduces the well-known heroes of the story (Galileo, Newton, Linnaeus) as well as lesser-recognized officers of scientific societies, printers and booksellers who turned scientific discovery into public knowledge, and editors who invented the scientific journal. Knight looks at a striking array of topics, from better maps to more accurate clocks, from a boom in printing to medical advancements. He portrays science and religion as engaged with each other rather than in constant conflict; in fact, science was often perceived as a way to uncover and celebrate God’s mysteries and laws. Populated with interesting characters, enriched with fascinating anecdotes, and built upon an acute understanding of the era, this book tells a story as thrilling as any in human history.

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Of all the inventions of the nineteenth century, the scientist is one of the most striking. In revolutionary France the science student, taught by men active in research, was born; and a generation later, the graduate student doing a PhD emerged in Germany. In 1833 the word ‘scientist’ was coined; forty years later science (increasingly specialised) was a becoming a profession. Men of science rivalled clerics and critics as sages; they were honoured as national treasures, and buried in state funerals. Their new ideas invigorated the life of the mind. Peripatetic congresses, great exhibitions, museums, technical colleges and laboratories blossomed; and new industries based on chemistry and electricity brought prosperity and power, economic and military. Eighteenth-century steam engines preceded understanding of the physics underlying them; but electric telegraphs and motors were applied science, based upon painstaking interpretation of nature. The ideas, discoveries and inventions of scientists transformed the world: lives were longer and healthier, cities and empires grew, societies became urban rather than agrarian, the local became global. And by the opening years of the twentieth century, science was spreading beyond Europe and North America, and women were beginning to be visible in the ranks of scientists. Bringing together the people, events, and discoveries of this exciting period into a lively narrative, this book will be essential reading both for students of the history of science and for anyone interested in the foundations of the world as we know it today.

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This is a complete, illustrated catalogue of the painting and sculpture of Pop Art pioneer Gerald Laing (1936–2011), who shot to fame in the 1960s with his large-scale, iconic paintings of film-stars such as Brigitte Bardot and Anna Karina, conveyed in styles and colours that aped the crude but powerful printing processes of mass advertising. In 1964 Laing moved to New York and transformed effortlessly from Pop artist to abstract minimalist, showing works in the seminal Primary Structures exhibition of 1966 and forming lasting friendships with leading lights of the US art world, such as Andy Warhol, Larry Poons, Roy Lichtenstein and Larry Bell. A self-imposed exile to a restored Scottish castle in 1969 removed him from the art world’s centre, but allowed him the space to develop a more personal, sculptural vocabulary in which the hard edges of his abstraction gradually gave way to anthropomorphic form.This catalogue raisonné covers each distinct phase of Laing’s career and includes a fully illustrated catalogue of his works alongside comprehensive related reference material: chronology, exhibition history and list of public collections. An introductory essay by Michael Findlay, a close friend of Laing, provides an overview of his artistic development while essays by gallerist Lyndsey Ingram, editor David Knight and Marco Livingstone, a leading authority on Pop Art, examine specific periods and aspects of Laing’s practice.

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