Originally published in 1960, The Edge of Objectivity helped to
establish the history of science as a full-fledged academic discipline.
In the mid-1950s, a young professor at Princeton named Charles Gillispie
began teaching Humanities 304, one of the first undergraduate courses
offered anywhere in the world on the history of science. From Galileo's
analysis of motion to theories of evolution and relativity, Gillispie
introduces key concepts, individuals, and themes. The Edge of
Objectivity arose out of this course.
It must have been a lively class. The Edge of Objectivity is pointed,
opinionated, and selective. Even at six hundred pages, the book is, as
the title suggests, an essay. Gillispie is unafraid to rate Mendel
higher than Darwin, Maxwell above Faraday. Full of wry turns of phrase,
the book effectively captures people and places. And throughout the
book, Gillispie pushes an argument. He views science as the progressive
development of more objective, detached, mathematical ways of viewing
the world, and he orchestrates his characters and ideas around this
theme.
This edition of Charles Coulston Gillispie's landmark book introduces a
new generation of readers to his provocative and enlightening account of
the advancement of scientific thought over the course of four centuries.
Since the original publication of The Edge of Objectivity, historians
of science have focused increasingly on the social context of science
rather than its internal dynamics, and they have frequently viewed
science more as a threatening instance of power than as an accumulation
of knowledge. Nevertheless, Gillispie's book remains a sophisticated,
fast-moving, idiosyncratic account of the development of scientific
ideas over four hundred years, by one of the founding intellects in the
history of science.
Featuring a new foreword by Theodore Porter, who places the work in its
intellectual context and the development of the field, this edition of
The Edge of Objectivity is a monumental work by one of the founding
intellects of the history of science.
