Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution

by Lisa Jardine

In this fascinating look at the European scientific advances of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, historian Lisa Jardine demonstrates that the pursuit of knowledge occurs not in isolation, but rather in the lively interplay and frequently cutthroat competition between creative minds.

The great thinkers of that extraordinary age, including Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and Christopher Wren, are shown in the context in which they lived and worked. We learn of the correspondences they kept with their equally passionate colleagues and come to understand the unique collaborative climate that fostered virtuoso discoveries in the areas of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, biology, chemistry, botany, geography, and engineering.   Ingenious Pursuits brilliantly chronicles the true intellectual revolution that continues to shape our very understanding of ourselves, and of the world around us.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, History Of Science, Biography, British Literature, Popular Science

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Lisa Anne Bronowski (Jardine) was a British historian of the early modern period. From 1990 to 2011 she was Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies and Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London. Since 2008 she was Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)] She was a Member of Council of the Royal Institution, but resigned from that post in September 2009. On 1 September 2012, She relocated with her research centre and its staff to University College London (UCL) to become the first director of its Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities.

Reviews

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting and intelligent book about the early Enlightenment, focused on England in the late 17th century. It is arranged topically and covers a number of subjects that were important in science at the time: astronomy; the invention of the microscope; architecture, relevant because of the math involved; scientific instruments and the improving of clocks so as to make meaningful measurements possible; anatomy; botany and the European craze for collecting specimens from around the world; medicine and the often dangerous remedies scientists tested on themselves (along with some experiments that were way ahead of their time, such as blood transfusion, which wasn’t particularly successful since it was attempted from animals to humans); the problem of how to measure longitude; the relationship between astronomy and cartography and consequent improvement in the accuracy of maps. It’s very readable, not as long as it appears due to a lot of illustrations, and definitely expanded my knowledge a bit.

The book is not a biography of anyone in particular (I came to it after The Age of Wonder and was a little disappointed in that at first, though admittedly, this one is appreciably shorter and probably contains more actual science history as a result). But it does spend some time with some of the biggest influences on the English science scene at the time, such as Newton, Hooke, and Halley, as well as paying attention to the context in which they worked. Discussion of some weird aspects of scientific culture at the time—such as the way some people would publish results in codes or anagrams so that they could later claim to have published first, while actually keeping their precious knowledge to themselves—was particularly interesting. The idea of scientific collaboration was new, and the German-born secretary of the Royal Society was even arrested for spying based on his scientific correspondence with foreigners.

I don’t love that this book, like most popular histories of science available in English, is very Anglo- and Eurocentric, and doesn’t acknowledge much contribution from anyone else. Also, despite being written by a woman, it has little to say about women in science—the one who is discussed, Maria Sibylla Merian, is presented as if she were an artist only. I also would have liked to see the book go more into depth on many of the topics and people discussed. That said, I learned from it and found it accessible. It is better and more comprehensive than the other books I’ve found on this time period.

[Arvind Balasundaram · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, authored by Lisa Jardine (daughter of Jacob Bronowski of Ascent of Man fame), is a read about the scientific endeavor along the lines of Richard Holmes' classic, The Age of Wonder (also reviewed by me in Goodreads). With copious illustrations and quotes from original works, the author introduces the reader to several personalities (some well-known, others not) and their pursuits in the name of science. In the process, she is very persuasive in making the argument that all science ultimately grows out of the preoccupations and pressures of everyday life, and the value of scientific discovery is in the access they provide to the common person. Throughout this easy-to-read work, we meet the likes of Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Christian Huygens, and Sir Christopher Wren, whose legacies in the name of science and architecture are well-established. However, it is in the highlighting the efforts of the not so well-known characters that Jardine marvellously succeeds - John Flamsteed, who was the First astronomer Royal, earning a hefty pay to produce the maps of the stars, which he vehemently refused to publish; Elias Ashmole, who in addition to cataloguing coins and medals, also acquired John Tradescant's collection of botanical specimens, which he bequeathed to what eventually became the Ashmolean Museum in his honor; Gottfried Kirsch, German astronomer and his wife, Maria Winkelmann, who was also one of the first victims of gender discrimmination in the scientific vocation. The author picks passages from the original texts that are very insightful of the mindset during the moment of the intellectual pursuit, whether it be in the narration of the transfusion experiments being conducted in criminals or in the unpredictable after-effects of ingesting possible experimental cures (some later shown to have fatal effects) - "I wanted to experiment upon myself," writes Frenchman Jacques Grevin experimenting with the now well-known poisonous antimony, "as being a thing as easy to take as a powdered grain of wheat. So I mixed a mere three grains with a little conserve of roses, as a result of which, in less than an hour, there followed such a strange vomiting that although I am of my nature not an easy vomiter, each time it took hold of me, I felt as if I were going to die. It took me thus eight times, and as many times it worked on me at the other end...".
This book moves fast, is entertaining, and is well-written. A complete description of the cast of characters appears after the epilogue, and the book leaves you wondering about how much these early scientists paved the way for many of the things we now take for granted...

[Gareth]

Jardine's book is meticulously researched, throwing interesting light on the development of science in the 17th and 18th centuries. It shows that science is not some abstract pursuit, divorced from real concerns, but tied up with military ambitions, commerce, colonialism. The first authors of guides to aspects of the natural world - fishes, plants, insects - were as concerned with turning a profit from selling specimens and drugs as they were in furthering knowledge. Also, the first pioneer scientists are an eccentric bunch. Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle shared an interest in alchemy. Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's foremost inventor and experimenter, was a talented artist, who supplied the engravings for his own Micrographia, one of the first collections of everyday objects (fleas, plant seeds) as seen through the microscope. He was also a keen self-medicator, dosing himself with everything from opium to mercury and lead (a practice also maintained by many of his contemporaries). We also learn interesting facts: St Paul's Cathedral was originally designed with a view to providing means to conduct scientific experiments; scientific collaboration continued between scientists of different nationalities, even when their countries were at war. Lisa Jardine writes well, and succeeds in giving fresh life to this early stage of the scientific revolution, and the book is a worthy read for anyone interested in the history of science. However, I do feel that it lacks commentary, to an extent. Whilst tracing the complicated web of influences upon the development of science, she rarely stands back and draws any explicit lessons or contribute her own observations. Some may applaud this lack of editorialising. Personally, however, I think such a survey as this would have benefited from more of this type of commentary, without which the book tends to degenerate at times into a mass of data - a sea of names, projects, publications, incidents, dates. And the history of science, like science itself, is more than just data collection.

Gareth Southwell is a philosopher, writer and illustrator.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A big timeline of European scientific discoveries centered around the Royal Society in England. The book is jam-packed with specific details (like names, dates, relationships), continuously referencing other events and circumstances, and challenging to read (due to sub clauses and references to other events). See previous sentence for an example.

The central argument is revealed in the Epilogue... that scientific discovery is messy and full of interpersonal conflict and human failing. The book itself is a giant series of anecdotes around this argument. I think the argument is, of course, accurate.

If you think science is a linear progress of discovery and invention by disinterested geniuses... this book will dissuade you of that notion.

[Stephen Cluff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This interesting book examines the interconnection between the various scientific advances of the 17th century and manages to make such luminaries as Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, and Gian Domenico Cassini into real men rather than the passionless scientific demigods they are sometimes portrayed as having been. For the most part I found this book to be quite engaging though my interest waned a little while reading the book’s last few chapters. Overall, however, Ingenious Pursuits was a worthy read.

[Malini Sridharan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was as much about the interactions between scientists as the actual scientific breakthroughs of the 17th century. I gained a lot of insight into some of the scientists most of us know only through one "discovery," like Hooke or Boyle. The text did not get as much into the nitty gritty of scientific disputes, alchemy, and exploitative tactics as I would have liked. It definitely would have been enlivened by a little more gossip.

[Jrobertus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at the cluster of genius that gave rise to modern science. It focuses on English, with a few Dutch and other European scientists of the 17th century. In addition to stars like Newton, Boyle, and Kepler there are others like Hooke, Wren,Harvey etc etc. The period was alive with mapping the world, building clocks, collecting species, and investigating all manner of natural law. Although the writing is a bit ponderous, this astonishing story tells itself.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in 2004 and have found myself picking it up recently. In simplest terms, it explores how inventions (such as the microscope) impacted the culture, individuals and the larger society. Seeing is believing, after all.

[Rob Melich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topic with great pictures, but very hard to read due to odd editing and narrative flow. Would recommend to a few friends but most would be bored.

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've owned this book for the best part of twenty years, but at some point it ended up being moved from my "to read" pile to the main bookshelves, at which point I forgot about it. I only realised I hadn't read it when I was browsing the shelves recently. I also have no memory of buying this book, and my edition has no hints of what it's about on the back cover (possibly one reason I kept ignoring it all those years ago, when I couldn't just google it), but it turns out it's a history of the scientific revolution that went hand in hand with the Enlightenment in Britain and across Europe in the second half of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century.

Jardine uses the Royal Society, its members and associates as her touchstone for the discoveries and inventions of this period. She talks about contributions from Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle and many others, in diverse fields. She covers the creation of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich; the importance of accurate clocks; telescopes and microscopes; and several other topics, that tend to become interrelated by the people involved. Hooke, in particular, is a recurring character, turning his hand to everything from clockmaking to microscopy to blood transfusion.

One thing that the book makes very clear is the level of cross-pollination of knowledge across Europe at the time. Henry Oldenburg, in particular, seems to have acted as a clearing house for knowledge, being secretary of the Royal Society. He received and sent correspondence across the continent, passing papers between people he thought would be interested, even when the corresponding polities were at war with each other, thus ensuring that the knowledge was spread around, and enabling new connections to be made that enable further discovery and invention.

The writing is lucid and easy to follow, something that I was relieved about after reading the introduction, which was denser and, to my mind, more deliberately academic. Jardine doesn't focus much on the personalities behind the scientists -- instead concentrating on the discoveries themselves and the relationships between them, although there are some cases when the personalities overshadow everything else. There are very few women mentioned in the book, possibly inevitable due to the period under discussion, although in saying that, I think there has been much more scholarship reviewing these discoveries and the contributions of women since this book was written.

An interesting book telling a fascinating story, and one that has an important message for today: science is international, and operates best in a spirit of cooperation, where people and ideas can flow freely through borders. Something that builders of walls and those stirring xenophobia would do well to remember.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically a defense of science in the wake of the cloning of Dolly the Sheep in 1997, which Jardine calls a “sensational scientific advance” that engendered moral outrage not unlike the creation of Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s novel. Jardine’s argument, however, is that although scientists are sometimes perceived as enemies of human values (unlike artists who are the “trusted guardians of morality”) and demonic creators of atom bombs and biological weapons, the same scientific process that created Dolly the Sheep is analogous to the process that brought about the Scientific Revolution of the latter seventeenth-century. The scientist, like the artist, is “one of us.” The history of science is “a story of chance, creative misunderstanding, wrong turnings, sudden opportunities taken, succumbing to sponsorship, and the inspired ingenuity of individual men and women.” Jardine’s argument is a bit outdated in today’s climate, where science is heralded more and more as the guardian of truth, opposed to conspiracy theories and misinformation. Ingenious Pursuits isn’t my favorite text, and frankly, I expected something different. Three stars.

[Alexis Kaelin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a Jardine fan, but I sometimes have a problem with how she titles her books. This comprised short little peeks into certain very specific issues without really addressing the "scientific revolution" as a whole. I certainly enjoyed reading about little disagreements and false starts, but it did not feel whole. Still, a good read.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covers such a broad scope that her examples my not have gotten as detailed as they would have liked, but it did provide some jumping points for further study.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

As Lisa Jardine reckons here, science nowadays often hurts itself against serious ethical questions, at times stirring fear within the popular psyche. It's especially true when it comes, for example, to genetics and our advances in term of understanding the human genome, raising concerns involving from cloning to eugenics. Such concerns, of course, aren't new. Mary Shelley had already warned us about 'playing God' in her Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, a work that still resonates up to these days... and for a good reason! And yet...

And yet, this distrust, or, at least, suspicion of science and scientists and the technological advances resulting from their research is relatively new (Lisa Jardine blames WWII and its aftermath, when our power to destruct truly took another level). And in fact indeed, such mindset would have been completely alien to those who shaped the first Scientific Revolution, an era that she recounts here.

This book, I must say, is truly fascinating. First, of course, because of its subject and the cast of characters that it involves. But not only. What I personally found particularly engrossing was how practical needs led to unexpected results and discoveries in whole different fields, seemingly unrelated, to radically transform the world as it was. The whole narrative, in fact, starts with King Charles II of England setting up the Royal Observatory; an astronomical endeavour whose purpose was, mainly, to help determine longitude and allow for safer sailings. The impact, though, would be felt not only upon navigation, but, also, upon our understanding of planetary motions... with long-lasting consequences! It carries on with similar domino effects, whereas one discovery would spread out to affect others in very surprising ways. For example, I had no idea that the dome of St Paul's Cathedral had been inspired by how lights get filtered by the lenses of microscopes (another major discovery of the time); that deep-sea diving was initiated by the air-pumps experiments on animals; nor that the collections of wealthy botanists would be so crucial in transforming medical science, for instance when it comes to the increasing use of various plant remedies...

Another surprise (at least for me!) was the emphasis put on compilation of data, the (obsessive) practical work about various measuring instruments and taxonomies. We often associate such first revolution with physics and maths (Newton tend to have overshadowed the whole period!) but there was far more to it than that indeed.

In the end, then, if you like science this is a must read. It's not only about a set of discoveries and the genius polymaths who made them. Going back to the suspicious fear too often caused by scientific and technological progress it is, also, a portray of a whole era when science, on the contrary, was truly galvanising people, especially across an Europe then in the grip of a powerful intellectual movement that would shatter the world. Again: truly fascinating and engrossing!

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jardine does an excellent job of describing the men and ideas of the scientific revolution. The book is comprehensively illustrated (so I would recommend a print copy rather than e-reader); nearly every two-page spread contains a figure of some sort, whether a scientist's hand-drawn notes, a page from a period book, or a photograph of a surviving instrument like Leeuwenhoek's microscope. She includes a number of quotes drawn from letters and publications at the time, and deciphering spelling from the period can be an amusing game. The book's organization sometimes feels haphazard, and some historically monumental events such as the publication of Newton's Principia seem glossed over.
Jardine does a great job of bringing forward important characters who have faded in history, as folks like Haley and Oldenberg worked tirelessly to perform less glamorous duties to keep the big names in the Royal Society churning out the brilliant insights we now associate with the scientific revolution. As always with the history of science, many of the ideas which missed the mark now look rather funny with the hindsight of hundreds of years of further research.
On the whole this is an excellent overview of the scientific revolution and highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of science.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this some years ago now and enjoyed it as a good wide ranging discussion of the scientific revolution - with an emphasis on the mainstream big names - Wren, the Royal Society etc etc. This mainstream historical view of the scientific revolution, particularly the emphasis on the aristocratic men's leadership of the process has been challenged and broadened by reading "The Jewel House" by Deborah Harkness, where she applied a sociological framework to examining the scientific revolution. She focused attention on the role of the big city, london in her example and the ordinary people who by working together, sharing knowledge, skills and experiences facilitated the explosion of knowledge that the big men of power then took control of. In the context of early modern europe - the reformation and political revolution occuring at the time, the powerful men's need to take control of the scientific revolution is laid bare for what it was to some extent.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable read that puts some context behind a few "great" scientific inventions and discoveries, often painting them as by-products of trying to understand somethings we think of now as commonplace or obvious. The personal stories weave together cohesively and the little bit of science is interesting. I personally was a little frustrated at the brevity of the descriptions of the inventions and experiments. Often I was left wanting a little more information to help me recall what I once knew in science class, and close the loop. Ultimately the book covers just a few people and returns to the same core stories and relationships. I would certainly read a series where the narrative to continues to track the history of invention and science. The book is laced with several excerpts from letters and papers written at the time, which became tiresome to read, and they are already well described in the text. After a few I simply scanned or skipped them altogether.

[Frederick Bingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a colleague's history class. It discusses the scientific revolution in 17th century England. The book is a series of anecdotes strung together of people like Hooke, Wren, Newton, Leibnitz, Huygens, Sloane, etc These are all early participants in the scientific revolution.l Many of the anecdotes are amusing but show that science is a messy and complicated human activity and that scientific discovery comes out of the times that people live in and their social structure.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jardine's book is incredibly informative and, generally, very interesting. There are some sections that I found to be particularly dry and boring (mostly the chapter(s) on collecting and classifying plants and animals) but, for the most part, Ingenious Pursuits is an enjoyable, comprehensive guide to the Scientific Revolution.

[Stuart Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

in attempting to build a comprehensive history, Jardine does well to confine each chapter to a single topic, rather than attempt to complete the book chronologically. still, the cast-of-thousands can be hard to navigate, and some maps or relationship trees or a comprehensive timeline in the appendices would have helped. still, very interesting.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The age of invention and expansion fo the 17th and 18th centuries, Newton, Halley and Soames. Truly fascinating stories of exploration, invention and growth.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag. If it were a biography of Hooke, and only that, I would rate it higher. The rest o the book is a hodgepodge of loosely related topics.

[Jon Vanderheyden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting approach to the history of developing science. At times some rather esoteric details on sidelights, but overall a worthwhile read.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great history of science, focusing on the beginnings of the British Royal Society. Fun reading!

[David Kent · Rating 2 out of 5]

Packed with good information on the history of science, but I found it overly weighted on a tiny handful of people and, sadly, largely boring. According to reviews, others found it more interesting, but I just wanted it to end.

[Ilib4kids]

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