Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Grafton, Anthony (1950-....)
Titre(s) : New worlds, ancient texts [Texte imprimé] : the power of tradition and the shock of discovery / Anthony Grafton ; with April Shelford and Nancy Siraisi
Publication : Cambridge (Mass.) ; London : Harvard university press, 1995
Description matérielle : x, 282 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-271) and index
On encountering what he called "the Indies," the Jesuit Jose de Acosta wrote, "Having
read what poets and philosophers write of the Torrid Zone, I persuaded myself that
when I came to the Equator, I would not be able to endure the violent heat, but it
turned out otherwise ... What could I do then but laugh at Aristotle's Meteorology
and his philosophy?" Acosta's experience echoes that of his fellow travelers to the
New World, and it is this experience, with its profound effect on Western culture,
that Anthony Grafton charts. Describing an era of exploration that went far beyond
geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations
of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans
so far afield. The intellectual shift mapped out here, a movement from book learning
to empirical knowledge, did not take place easily or quickly, and Grafton presents
it in all its drama and complexity. What he recounts is in effect a war of ideas fought,
sometimes unwittingly by mariners, scientists, publishers, scholars, and rulers over
one hundred fifty years. He shows us explorers from Cortes and Columbus to Scaliger
and Munster, laden with ideas gathered from ancient and medieval texts, in their encounters
with the world at large. In colorful vignettes, firsthand accounts, published debates,
and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make
sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally
displace traditional images and notions of the world beyond Europe. The fundamental
cultural revolution that Grafton documents still reverberates in our time. By taking
us into this battle of books versus facts, a conflict that has shaped global views
for centuries, Grafton allows us to re-experience and understand the Renaissance as
it continues to this day
Autre(s) auteur(s) : Shelford, April G.. Collaborateur
Siraisi, Nancy G. (1932-....). Collaborateur
Sujet(s) : Découverte et exploration -- Amérique
Vie intellectuelle -- Europe -- 16e siècle
Vie intellectuelle -- Europe -- 17e siècle
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 0674618750. - ISBN 9780674618756. - ISBN 0674618769. - ISBN 9780674618763
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb45469842d
Notice n° :
FRBNF45469842
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
Table des matières : Foreword / Timothy Healy ; 1. A Bound World: The Scholar's Cosmos ; 2. Navigators
and Conquerors: The Universe of the Practical Man ; 3. All Coherence Gone ; 4. Drugs
and Diseases: New World Biology and Old World Learning ; 5. A New World of Learning.
