A geohistorical study of ‘The Rise of Modern Science’: mapping scientific practice through urban networks, 1500–1900

Taylor, Peter, Hoyler, Michael and Evans, David M. (2008) A geohistorical study of ‘The Rise of Modern Science’: mapping scientific practice through urban networks, 1500–1900. Minerva, 46 (4). pp. 391-410. ISSN 0026-4695

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11024-008-9109-8

Abstract

Using data on the ‘career’ paths of one thousand ‘leading scientists’ from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the ‘rise of modern science’ is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein’s modern worldsystem; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: L700 Human and Social Geography
V300 History by topic
Department: Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Geography and Environmental Sciences
Depositing User: Helen Pattison
Date Deposited: 23 Apr 2012 08:57
Last Modified: 13 Oct 2019 00:24
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6380

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