Archives and the Boundaries of Early Modern Science
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4176262 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicholas Popper (0000-0002-1975-0966, William & Mary, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 86-94 |
| Publication date | 2016-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/686079 |
| PMID | 27197414 |
| OpenAlex | W2313798975 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 16 |
This contribution argues that the study of early modern archives suggests a new agenda for historians of early modern science. While in recent years historians of science have begun to direct increased attention toward the collections amassed by figures and institutions traditionally portrayed as proto-scientific, archives proliferated across early modern Europe, emerging as powerful tools for creating knowledge in politics, history, and law as well as natural philosophy, botany, and more. The essay investigates the methods of production, collection, organization, and manipulation used by English statesmen and Crown officers such as Keeper of the State Papers Thomas Wilson and Secretary of State Joseph Williamson to govern their disorderly collections. Their methods, it is shown, were shared with contemporaries seeking to generate and manage other troves of evidence and in fact reflect a complex ecosystem of imitation and exchange across fields of inquiry. These commonalities suggest that historians of science should look beyond the ancestors of modern scientific disciplines to examine how practices of producing knowledge emerged and migrated throughout cultures of learning in Europe and beyond. Creating such a map of knowledge production and exchange, the essay concludes, would provide a renewed and expansive ambition for the field
Environmental ethics · Expansive · Field (mathematics · Imitation · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of scientific knowledge · State (computer science · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2021 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |