Product Description

In this wide-ranging and stimulating book, a leading authority on the history of medicine and science presents convincing evidence that Dutch commerce, not religion, inspired the rise of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harold Cook scrutinizes a wealth of historical documents relating to the study of medicine and natural history in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Asia during this era, and his conclusions are fresh and exciting. He uncovers direct links between the rise of trade and commerce in the Dutch Empire and the flourishing of scientific investigation.Cook argues that engaging in commerce changed the thinking of Dutch citizens, leading to a new emphasis on such values as objectivity, accumulation, and description. The preference for accurate information that accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally, wherever the Dutch engaged in trade. Medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science, as reflected in the development of gardens for both pleasure and botanical study, anatomical theatres, curiosity cabinets, and richly illustrated books about nature. Sweeping in scope and original in its insights, this book revises previous understandings of the history of science and ideas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278714 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Review
"'A considerable scholarly achievement.' Steven Shapin, London Review of Books 'Drawing on nearly twenty years of research, Matters of Exchange is a dense, scholarly, fascinating book, packed with information and full of marvellous stories about cultural exchange between different cultures, and containing at its heart an important but complicated argument about the roots of scientific objectivity and the rise of the global trade. It is a huge, if slightly daunting achievement, but it will undoubtedly become a standard work for anyone interested in the Dutch Golden Age.' Jerry Brotton, BBC History Magazine"

History Today, August 2007
'...a collectors delight that enriches our understanding of the
travels, trade and translations that made the Golden Age possible.'

Times Literary Supplement Times Literary Supplement, September 14, 2007
'At every stage in Matters of Exchange: Commerce, medicine and science in the Dutch Golden Age, Cook looks beyond the facts from which his thesis started, to the moral philosophy, culture and religious changes and tensions which influenced the impact of the new approach.'

Customer Reviews

Most excellent
This book has many fine qualities. First of all, it reads very easily in a pleasant and flowing style, following key people through history, using each person illustratively of an important aspect of the overall story. Secondly, its rich in detail - which comes across as very carefully researched and documented. The overall arguments, among others that traveling, i.e. getting physically in touch with other things, environments, people, artifacts, changed the approach to knowledge from one centered on (textual) logic to one derived from (physically) grasping.

Highly recommendable!