Science: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites sciences past. Instead of focussing on difficult experiments & abstract theories Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war politics & business. Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes she tells true stories about real people
- men (and some women) who needed to earn their living who made mistakes & who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success. Fara sweeps through the centuries from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics & particle physics illuminating the financial interests imperial ambitions & publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today. She also ranges internationally illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world from China to the Islamic empire as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe from Copernicus to Charles Darwin & beyond. Above all this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right
- but because people have said that it is right.