The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science
Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages : 416
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781324002949
ISBN-13 : 1324002948
Rating : 4/5 (49 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by : Seb Falk

Download or read book The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science written by Seb Falk and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of 2020 by The Telegraph, The Times, and BBC History Magazine An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk. "Falk’s bubbling curiosity and strong sense of storytelling always swept me along. By the end, The Light Ages didn’t just broaden my conception of science; even as I scrolled away on my Kindle, it felt like I was sitting alongside Westwyk at St. Albans abbey, leafing through dusty manuscripts by candlelight." —Alex Orlando, Discover Soaring Gothic cathedrals, violent crusades, the Black Death: these are the dramatic forces that shaped the medieval era. But the so-called Dark Ages also gave us the first universities, eyeglasses, and mechanical clocks. As medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky, they came to develop a vibrant scientific culture. In The Light Ages, Cambridge science historian Seb Falk takes us on a tour of medieval science through the eyes of one fourteenth-century monk, John of Westwyk. Born in a rural manor, educated in England’s grandest monastery, and then exiled to a clifftop priory, Westwyk was an intrepid crusader, inventor, and astrologer. From multiplying Roman numerals to navigating by the stars, curing disease, and telling time with an ancient astrolabe, we learn emerging science alongside Westwyk and travel with him through the length and breadth of England and beyond its shores. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy, and the Persian polymath who founded the world’s most advanced observatory. The Light Ages offers a gripping story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man in a precarious world and conjures a vivid picture of medieval life as we have never seen it before. An enlightening history that argues that these times weren’t so dark after all, The Light Ages shows how medieval ideas continue to color how we see the world today.


The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science Related Books

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science
Language: en
Pages: 416
Authors: Seb Falk
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-11-17 - Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Named a Best Book of 2020 by The Telegraph, The Times, and BBC History Magazine An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Mi
The Light Ages
Language: en
Pages: 416
Authors: Seb Falk
Categories: Inventions
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-06-10 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Bright Ages
Language: en
Pages: 336
Authors: Matthew Gabriele
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-12-07 - Publisher: HarperCollins

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"The beauty and levity that Perry and Gabriele have captured in this book are what I think will help it to become a standard text for general audiences for year
Light in the Dark Ages
Language: en
Pages: 268
Authors: Richard Hodges
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 1997 - Publisher: Cornell University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beginning in 1981, Richard Hodges supervised the excavation of the Benedictine monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, one of the great centers of Dark Age Europ
Bright Lights in the Dark Ages
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Noël Adams
Categories: ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014 - Publisher: Giles

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Full of shining artistic gems from a dark period of early medieval history