Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating book about the flowering of science
Review: This is a somewhat episodic historic of a critical period in the scientific revolution, when the Royal Society was in full flower with Newton, Halley, Hooke, Flamsteed, and other luminaries ushering in the era of scientific discovery that led to our science (and society) today.Each chapter focuses on a different topic: planetary astronomy, measurement, chemistry, microscopy, etc. This is a distinctive approach with both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that each chapter is a focused little history, easy to follow and to understand. The disadvantage is that incidents that bear in more than one area tend to be discussed repetitively, which becomes a little confusing at times. However, perhaps this helps to emphasis Jardine's thesis: that this was an era when the men of intellect did not categorize themselves into branches of science, or even between science and art. So Hooke, Newton, and some others appear in many chapters in many areas of inquiry. All in all, it's a very readable and interesting book with numerous illustrations, though strangely some of the illustrations appear both as black-and-white illustrations with the text and as inserted color plates. It's not clear what the point of that is. Still, a fascinating and readable book about the flowering of science.
Rating: 
Summary: thorough yet aimless; detailed yet unclear
Review: This is a tough book to finish because it isn't clear where the story is. The research is thorough, as you might expect from an author who is "Professor of Renaissance Studies". But the book touches on all kinds of scientific advances and technology that would be interesting if explained. Jardine mentions the introduction of the ruby bearing for chronometers. But she doesn't explain or illustrate the jewelled watch movement. By contrast I've watched Gerry Sussman, an MIT EECS professor, hold an audience spellbound with a clear explanation of what the 17 jewels in a 17-jewel watch movement do. Next time Jardine writes about science, I hope that she collaborates with an engineer or scientist and an illustrator.
| 
