Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead.

I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings.

Anything requested and approved will be read and a decent quality review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

A broad, but ultimately unsatisfying exploration of scientific discovery. Poskett has a strong command of his subject matter, but his analysis feels shallow.

(An extended review will be posted on Small Things Considered in the coming weeks.)

I was thrilled when I learned that a new book would be presenting a holistic history of science. Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science by science historian James Poskett sheds new light on the inextricable interconnectedness of scientific progress. This is at both the global level and at the level of the individual. Horizons traces the histories of astronomy, natural history, evolution, theoretical physics, and genetics, giving credit to non-Europeans where credit is due, and does away with popular notions of "isolated geniuses" in science, instead putting forth a much more collaborative narrative.

Landmark moments in scientific progress are reframed as a collaborative effort, spreading the credit so popularly singly attributed to figureheads like Copernicus and Isaac Newton. The book first follows the development of natural history, medicine, and geography in the fifteenth century Americas as Spaniards met the Aztecs and learned from them about unfamiliar plants and animals. It was in this time period in which a new approach to science and medicine arose: making observations and testing ideas against experience. (In other words, the essence of experiments.) From astronomy to physics, trading hub cities like Istanbul, Timbuktu, Delhi, Beijing saw the trading of manuscripts and were inherent propellers of scientific progress. Scientific knowledge is intimately tied to cultural exchange. This book is also a reminder of why it's so important to have people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences in science, as that is how innovation (the bringing together of existing things in a novel way) emerges.

The information in this book is absolutely essential, and even for that reason only I think it's a universally invaluable read. I did feel that at some places the level of detail seemed unbalanced, with too much time spent on points that had already been drilled home and fewer words allocated to discussing aspects especially relevant to (although perhaps this is due to scarcity of historical information). The book’s structure may or may not appeal to readers: each chapter is bookended by clearly offset, standalone introductions and conclusions, like an academic paper. It was an explicitly lecture-like voice and format (this kind: 1. tell them what you’re going to talk about, 2. talk about it, 3. tell them again what you just talked about). But maybe this textbook-like format was intentional, the author perhaps intending this book to be used that way.

More accurate tellings of science history, as this book does, are essential to science communication/increasing inclusivity within the sciences, by filling the ellipses in history.

James Poskett tells a new story of the history of science and it doesn’t tell the one we were all taught. It is timely that this is addressed as we all become more aware of the Eurocentric and male dominated stories we were taught.

HORIZONS

From the outside looking in, so much of science comes across as the work of lone geniuses toiling away at the frontiers of discovery. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth: science is an enterprise that requires collaboration by people with diverse ideas, building upon the work of those that came before them as well as the zeitgeist of the times. In a sense, this is at the heart of James Poskett’s Horizons: A Global History of Science.

“The best way to understand the history of modern science is to think in terms of key moments in global history,” Poskett writes, and thus his point of departure is the much ballyhooed Scientific Revolution. This plum period of scientific discovery is often revered as among the great eras of modern science, if not the greatest—and yet this Eurocentric perspective prevails only to the extent that history is written by the victors.

Poskett quite capably demonstrates how so much the Scientific Revolution itself owes to discoveries from the Far East, and how in many respects non-European cultures were so much more advanced in their grasp of certain fields than their Western counterparts. As Poskett rightly observes, “[o]ften ignored in the history of science, a diverse range of people from across Africa, Asia, and the Americas contributed to the development of eighteenth century natural history. They brought with them their own scientific traditions, upon which Europeans often relied in order to understand and classify foreign environments.”

Thus, calling for a global perspective on the history of science is not mere tokenism. On the contrary: it is necessarily a more holistic (not to mention correct) view about what shapes our understanding of the world. Yes, science has often been the work of the passionate genius, but it has also been the end-product of imperial conquest, the slave trade, political revolutions, and even capitalism itself.

We may take this for granted, but bringing it to the fore helps broaden our own horizons about what science is and stands for.

4.5 stars

I am grateful to Mariner Books for sending me an advanced copy of this book for review.

De-colonializing science history!

I think this is a great topic and I also think that this book was a great presentation of that information. Science history is something that's taught to every science student at some point, but what we are taught is very steeped in colonialism and Western and imperialism . It was nice to read about some things that have been implied, some things that seem obvious and some things that were just brand new to me. I enjoyed how we traveled the world and spoke about scientific findings chronologically and saw different people who were involved and were either completely ignored or were later erased from the narrative.

I appreciated the way that the book presented the importance of local knowledge, culture, and religion, to the development of scientific ideas . It highlighted how many times Europeans overlooked scientific advancements of other people around the world because of the expectation of inferiority of other civilizations. They believed that other peoples would not have anything useful to contribute to the conversation about science and technology. I also thought it was interesting that in some instances when European scientists did give credit to the original sources or referenced work from scientists located in other parts of the world who inspired their process, it was completely erased from the history and these names are never taught to us today. I think the book laid this out pretty nicely and makes it clear to the reader how important other civilizations and other knowledge was to the development of science. Many advancements that we have today, in the hands of the Europeans alone, would have taken much longer.

I am a scientist, which means that at many points in my education I have been taught about those famous names and their achievements, so I found so much value and so much new information in this book. The fact that it compiled all of this information about people who have been erased from science's history and allowed me to appreciate the contributions of these people was a great experience. I have read other books about people (especially women) who have been erased from science history more recently, so it was interesting to see them go as far back as in the days of discovery to show how even then, when the world was being mapped, they were not able to accomplish this in isolation. These explorers depended upon the help of native peoples from different places to assist and guide them to achieve these feats.

I thought this book was accessible and a fast, intriguing read. The author did a great job of structuring this text to make it not tedious but very informative. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in history and science/technology or are just curious about the subject of science history and the impact of colonialism.

A provocative deep dive into the history of science chock-full of insights and unknown facts that challenge the oversimplified view many have about the origins of science. A book that all scientists should read to help them better appreciate the diversity of influences that shaped modern-day science.

Horizons, by James Poskett, is a welcome corrective to the Eurocentric history of science many of us learned, as well as, albeit to a lesser extent, the idea of the great genius (almost always a man) making great discoveries independent of all else. Instead, as Poskett mostly does a good job of showing, as he puts it, “Science was not a product of a unique European culture [but] has always depended upon bringing together people and ideas from different cultures around the world,” was shaped by global history, and often progressed thanks to the efforts of “scientists who have been written out of history.”

Early on, Poskett makes several points clear: that this idea of an “exchange” between cultures was not always mutually beneficial but often took the form of one culture exploiting another and that when contributions of non-Western cultures are acknowledged, they’re often “relegated to the distant past [and thus] reinforce the narrative that places like China and the Middle East have little to do with the history of modern science.” After the introduction, The book is structured chronologically into four sections, 1450—1700, 1650—188, 1790—1914, 1914—2000 and ranges across the globe.

The first opens with the Aztecs and then after a brief foray into their natural science, texts, medical knowledge, moves to how the European colonization of the New World (and the “accompanying appropriation of Aztec and Inca knowledge) prompted European scholars to “turn away from ancient texts and start investigating the natural world for themselves.” From there, he explores how the “new era of contact between Europe and Asia had an equally profound effect on the development of science.” For instance, Poskett notes how Copernicus cited nearly a half-dozen Islamic authors in his famed work. While hitting some of the expected settings, such as Baghdad and Istanbul, Poskett also presents the important astronomy carried out in Timbuktu in the 16th century. From there moving forward in time to the 18th century, we pass through the advances made in China and India.

The next section incorporates Polynesia, Mesoamerica, and the Arctic, emphasizing the ways in which this period, often seen as the rise of modern science thanks to Western Europe, had Europeans consistently relying on the knowledge and work of indigenous people, such as “French surveyors . . . depended upon Inca astronomical traditions . . . Captain Cook relied on the navigational expertise of a Polynesian priest and … Russian explorers recruited Indigenous people to guide them across the frozen landscape.” In the third section, Poskett focuses early on evolution and shows how, despite the “Darwin invented the idea” simplification often taught in Western schools, the idea had been percolating around for a while, including in Egypt, Russia, and South America and was also how Darwin’s theory was not just presaged but strengthened/modified in non-Western as well, such as Japan. Then, Poskett moves into chemistry and physics. One of the nice elements here is not just a non-Western focus (the chapter covers contributions to the physical sciences, from Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Japan Colonial India) but also a non-male one, as several of the key scientists were women.

This welcome de-erasure of contributions by women continues in the final section, which focuses a lot on physics and genetics and covers development in Communist Russia, China, India, Mexico, and Japan. In this section we also get one of the most overt examples of Non-Western erasure when an American physicist awarded a Noble Prize for the “discovery” of the positron retracted his early statement that he’d found it by “accident” to acknowledge he’d been inspired by the experiments of a Chinese researcher. We also learn how the poster board for lone genius, Albert Einstein, was heavily influenced by the work of non-Westerners, not just in his physics (where he collaborated with an Indian scientist, Bose, on one of his last great discoveries) but also in his later-life politics.

This great cultural mixing has become especially prevalent recently in space exploration, where non-Western countries are not only sending up their own satellites and probes, but where large missions are made up of wide-ranging collaborations. For instance, The United Arab Emirates recruited scientists/engineers from the US and South Korea, then launched a probe to Mars via a Japanese rocket, though Poskett worries about both the motivations for such programs and their cost in a time where priorities might better be shifted elsewhere (such as battling the impact of climate change).

This wide-picture view is one of the strengths of Horizons. Poskett doesn’t simply range widely geographically, he also pulls back and examines how large historical trends, such as nationalism or the Cold War have had an impact on the development of modern science. He uses those same trends to look forward a bit with regard to space exploration and climate change, as noted, but also the rising importance of A.I. in a thoughtful, neutral fashion.

As noted at the start, Horizons is a welcome text in how it broadens the view so many westerners have on modern science — that it was “birthed” in the West and has always reached its apex there. Here and there I thought Poskett might have pushed things a bit too far in their interrelatedness, but those moments were few and far between and far outnumbered by the wealth of examples he offers up. The prose could have been a bit more engaging, but it certainly was adequate to its purpose. I also appreciated how rather than a litany of generic cultural achievements, Poskett did a nice job of bringing forward the actual people involved in those achievements so that they felt more alive and personal, much more than simple names or blank stand-in for a particular culture or region. Recommended.

I enjoyed this book. It provides a different, very interesting perspective on the history of science. The book is well-written and I liked the author's conversational tone. Although I am not sure how well the book supported the idea of the interconnectedness of science, it was fun to learn about the social and scientific aspects of nations that don’t typically make it into most history of science books. The part of the book I liked a little less was the history of evolution. I would have liked to have seen a little more about Alfred Russel Wallace. There was also too much content on social Darwinism. Nonetheless, this is a book well worth reading and I recommend it for anyone interested in the history of science. Thank you to Netgalley and Mariner Books for the advance reader copy.

Very interesting book - arguably completely up my alley, but as far as I'm concerned Science is entirely too western-centric and this is a really fantastic introduction into that. It's admittedly a little slower paced, as some other reviewers have noted, but I think that's because of the content - basically it gets down to science is rarely about *one person* and there is far too little acknowledgement of that. Very detailed, with a lot of insight - a bit of the problem is trying to sum everything up in one book is just a taste, but still a fantastic place to start on this topic.

A timely, well-argued if occasionally overly-detailed history of science emphasising the often unsung importance of ideas and scientific pioneers from far beyond the popular Western canon, the Arabic world and the Far East in particular.

I loved reading this book. It is a bit of a slow paced reading because it is full of details of who, when, where or what happened in science but it shows clearly how all the great ideas were created not because of one person or one nation but because more people from different nations, of different nationalities and ethnicities inspired from each other or worked together in some cases. Sometimes, these days, people may forget all about this so this book might be a reminder that progress is made if everyone works together and not against each other.



Thank you NetGalley for providing an ARC of the book :)

This one is hard for me to review.
The main thesis in here is that the science rarely, if ever, belongs to a single person/nation/country/religion etc. The truth is that the ideas, resources and people have always been travelling and influencing others elsewhere. We wouldn´t be where we are today if every country or nation would have lived in total isolation.
All of this is true, no need to argue with it.
The thing is the author is deperately proving and explaining his thesis by bombarding his readers with an enormous amount of details... it simply becomes overwhelming and... sorry to say... boring. And as for myself, as a person who likes to read about history and science, I haven´t found in this book anything new.
However, I do appreciate the author´s hard work and knowledge, this is an incredibly detailed book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4230102149