Saturday, April 14, 2007

"The Fellowship"

Forthcoming from Overlook Press: John Gribbin's The Fellowship: Gilbert, Bacon, Harvey, Wren, Newton, and the Story of the Scientific Revolution.

About the book, from the publisher:

Seventeenth-century England was racked by civil war, plague, and fire; a world ruled by superstition and ignorance. But then a series of meetings of ‘natural philosophers’ in Oxford and London saw the beginning of a new method of thinking based on proof and experiment. And at the heart of this Renaissance were the founding fathers of modern western science: The Royal Society.

John Gribbin’s gripping, colorful account of this unparalleled time of discovery explores the birth of the Society and brings its prime movers to life, including: William Gilbert, Francis Bacon, William Harvey, Christopher Wren, Robert Morey, Robert Hooke, and his ambitious rival Isaac Newton.

This compelling book shows how the triumph of the revolution that changed our world—and still continues 350 years on — was ultimately not the work of one isolated genius, but of a Fellowship.