Lawrence Principe

A very good, up-to-date history of alchemical thought and practice. Principe has threaded the needle nicely here, with a book basic enough for someone with a casual interest in the subject but with enough depth (plus thorough footnotes and a very extensive bibliography) for those with a grounding in the history of science in general or alchemy in particular. One of the major strengths of the book is that Principe has actually attempted to replicate results described in alchemical texts, with show more some very interesting results.

I was particularly struck by the following passage, the substance of which comes up fairly often in Principe's discussions:

"People today and people of the past often do not share the same vision or expectations of the world, nor do they necessarily approach the world in the same way. Their questions were not our questions, nor were their ways of answering them necessarily our ways. What seems arbitrary to one expresses a profound law of nature to the other; what seems an insight into the design of the cosmos to one appears as mere trivia to the other. Recognizing these differences helps us avoid the error of projecting our own knowledge and expectations onto the past as measures of its value" (p. 42).

In the first three chapters, Principe explores the origins of alchemical thought in the Greco-Egyptian period, in the Arabic world, and in the medieval Latin period. Then he bounces forward briefly to examine how alchemy was seen and interpreted from the eighteenth century to the present before moving back slightly in time to cover the "heyday" period of alchemical in the early modern era. The final two chapters cover his efforts to interpret certain alchemical recipes, and offer a brief survey of alchemy as portrayed in art, literature, theater, and other cultural environments.

As Principe makes clear often, there's still much work to be done before we can fully understand the role of alchemical thought and practice, but this book does much to make that possible, and I hope perhaps it will spur other efforts as well. show less

I found this Great Courses audiobook series of lectures by Professer Lawrence M. Principe on Science and Religion to be extremely educational and intellectually stimulating. Professor Principe did a very good job of summarizing and condensing into twelve half hour lectures an immense amount of information giving us a solid stepping stone on some of the principal points of history of theology and science and of some of the principal players in each. The main focus is how science and religion show more have for most of history not been at war with each other and the idea that they are is a relatively modern development and the reasons for that are explained.

Evolution and creationism is gone over in some detail, as well as the evangelical, fundamentalist movements in America that have grown so large in recent years and are one of the major sources of the huge divisions and political battling for control Americans are currently facing. show less

It's not that people in the pre-scientific age weren't intelligent - but rather they engaged in a fundamentally different form of reasoning. Science allowed us to reason differently about what we observe. Principe provides a wonderful and accessible account of this shift.

This is very much an academic work, well-cited with minimalist prose and as such can be difficult to make it all the way through. However, those that do make it through will be rewarded with an interesting overview of the history of chemistry, alchemy and the evolution of the scientific process over time. The two authors are both professors of history while Principe is a professor of chemistry as well. These two authors bring a deep domain knowledge of both the characters of interest and of show more the history of chemistry - both which are well-suited for the subject matter. Overall, a rewarding yet very dense overview on the history of some key figures in medieval alchemy. show less