A radical retelling of the history of science that challenges the Eurocentric narrative. We are
told that modern science was invented in Europe the product of great minds like Nicolaus
Copernicus Isaac Newton Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But this is wrong. The history of
science is not and has never been a uniquely European endeavour. Copernicus relied on
mathematical techniques borrowed from Arabic and Persian texts. When Newton set out the laws of
motion he relied on astronomical observations made in India and Africa. When Darwin was
writing On the Origin of Species he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopaedia. And
when Einstein was studying quantum mechanics he was inspired by the young Bengali physicist
Satyendra Nath Bose. Horizons pushes the history of science beyond Europe exploring the ways
in which scientists from Africa America Asia and the Pacific fit into this global story.
Scientists today are quick to recognise the international nature of their work. In this
ambitious and revisionist history James Poskett reveals that this tradition goes back much
further than we think. Perfect reading for fans of Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads and Bettany
Hughes's Istanbul.
