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Rating: 
Summary: Thorough overview of the topic
Review: I wouldn't personally describe medieval science history as the sexiest of subjects. Compared to knights in shining armor doing battle for the love of a fair damsel, it can be fairly cerebral. But since a lot of people like cerebral subjects, Science in the Middle Ages is here to provide a strong overview of the field as a whole.Clearly the arrangement is topical and each chapter is intended to stand alone. Though edited by David Lindberg, each chapter is written by a different expert author in the field (except that Lindberg wrote two chapters). This provides for accuracy and thoroughness, and also for a level of detail that should be considered before reading. I should point out, as this forum is intended for a general audience, that the book really is not intended for a general audience. I do have some training in science history, but I still found the book very slow going. I say this not to fault the many authors, but to provide information to potential readers. You will be expected to pay attention - this is not skimming material. It is, however, very well presented. For the interested researcher or the dedicated layman, the text does cover a great deal of medieval science history. It can be very illuminating to realize how differently, but still how deeply, people considered questions about the world around them. Though natural philosophers had not obtained the mindset of the enlightenment or the methodology that came out of the Newtonian revolution, they did put tremendous effort and thought into their questions, and their questions did show considerable imagination at times. This is not the place to guide the reader through the transition from medieval to modern science. Other works have done that quite nicely. What we do see here is Medieval science presented in its own right, not as a foreshadowing of what was to come (though clearly as a product of what had been) but as its own achievement in its age.
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