A Culture of Fact is a superb realization of a great idea. Erudite, conceptually rich, and thought provoking, it also constitutes an important supplement to several areas of scholarship in early modern English intellectual history.

Fascinating work... Shapiro admirably achieves her aim, which is to shed light on questions relating to disciplinary development and permeability. She emphasizes the legal origins of 'fact' without overestimating legal influences in the development of other disciplines. She shows how this critical element of our language of empiricism was shaped out of legal practices and how a concept of 'fact' grounded in human acts and testimony became a commonplace of Anglo-American cultural practice.

Commanding both a formidable range of reference and a lucid prose style, Shapiro has something interesting to say about almost every topic she touches... Shapiro's book can be recommended as essential reading for anyone concerned with the intellectual history of early modern England.

A Culture of Fact is clearly written and lucidly arranged... The work rests upon an impressive amount of reading in the vernacular printed books of the period, and also makes use of some archival material from the Royal Society.

Barbara Shapiro's original account of the concept of fact in early-modern English culture moves outward from law to virtually every area of professional and lay intellectual curiosity and endeavor. Thoughtful, learned, and admirably lucid, A Culture of Fact is an important contribution to the study of post-Medieval Western culture in general.