|
|
Article: The puffers' progress: alchemy and the roots of modern science.(Book review)
- Article from:
- CLIO
- Article date:
- September 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Indiana University, Purdue University of Fort Wayne. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. By William R. Newman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004. 333 pages.
The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. Edited by Stanton J. Linden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 260 pages.
The death of alchemy was astonishingly sudden--so sudden, in fact, as to arouse suspicion that reports of it have been greatly exaggerated. A science that occupied the best minds of three continents since before recorded history until the late seventeenth century does not expire overnight. What happened, rather, was that a certain faction within the disputatious ...