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This book questions the traditional 'grand narratives' of science and religion in the seventeenth century. The binary oppositions underlying the story - between reason and faith, between knowledge and authority, between scripture and the light of nature - have moulded it into a formative myth: the banner of modern rationalism, liberalism and individualism. While deconstructing the oppositions behind the conflict, the book offers an analysis of the complex power/knowledge field in which the drama of Galileo and the Church unfolded. The act of silencing exemplified in the trials of Galileo is in no need of demonstration. It has been so imprinted in our consciousness that to reassert it is to state the obvious. The author's story is not about the repression of truth by religious authority. It is the story of an encounter between different types of power/knowledge structures within the framework of a dialogical model.