Nature Engaged: Science in Practice from the Renaissance to the Present

Gathering essays that focus on the worldliness of science, this volume offers a kaleidoscopic survey of some of the newest and most exciting work in the history of science. The contributions here are situated at the intersection of science studies and cultural history, revealing science's inseparable engagement with the major institutional bases of social life: law, market, church, school, and nation. With a chronological span reaching from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, these pieces explore sundials, genetic sequences, simulations of human behavior, cartography, radioactive fallout, and a host of other historical phenomena that show the sciences in action throughout human society.