Investigations of Nature: Europe in a Global World, 1450s-1780s

Investigations of Nature takes us on a guided tour through history, when voyages of exploration and exploitation were tied to technological advances in navigation and warfare; religious unity was broken with huge political, economic, and intellectual consequences; and the new art of printing led to an explosion of information. After a brief introduction, each part of this book—from sections on the Renaissance to the Epistemic Revolution to the Enlightenment—opens with a chapter discussing a...