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Article: Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Canadian Journal of History
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Canadian Journal of History. 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)
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Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution, by William R. Newman. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006. xiii, 250 pp. $75.00 US (cloth), $30.00 US (paper).
Alchemy is a pseudo-science infused with religious notions and did nothing but hinder the development of scientific chemistry. Right? Wrong. A number of scholars--notably Lawrence M. Principe on Boyle's alchemy and eighteenth-century chemistry, the late B.J.T. Dobbs on the meaning of Newton's alchemy, and Bruce Moran on alchemy in the German courts--have been formulating a major revision of this view, demonstrating the important role that alchemy played in early ...