David Wootton

A New History of the Scientific Revolution

The Invention of Science

John Locke

John Locke's Second Treatise of Government' (c1681) is perhaps the key founding liberal text. A Letter Concerning Toleration', written in 1685 (a year when a Catholic monarch came to the throne of England and Louis XVI unleashed a reign of terror against Protestants in France), is a classic defence of religious freedom. Yet many of Locke's other writings -- not least the Constitutions of Carolina', which he helped draft -- are almost defiantly anti-liberal in outlook. This comprehensive collection brings together the main published works (excluding polemical attacks on other people's views) with the most important surviving evidence from among Locke's papers relating to his political philosophy. David Wootton's wide-ranging and scholarly Introduction sets the writings in the context of their time, examines Locke's developing ideas and unorthodox Christianity, and analyses his main arguments. The result is the first fully rounded picture of Locke's political thought in his own words.

Locke: Political Writings

Bilimin Icadi - Bilim Devriminin Yeni Bir Tarihi

We all face disease and death, and rely on the medical profession to extend our lives. Yet, David Wootton argues, from the fifth century BC until the 1930s, doctors actually did more harm than good. In this controversial new account of the history of medicine, he asks just how much good it has done us over the years, and how much harm it continues to do today. - ;Just how much good has medicine done over the years, and how much harm does it continue to do? The history of medicine begins with Hippocrates in the fifth century BC. Yet until the invention of antibiotics in the 1930s doctors, in general, did their patients more harm than good. In this fascinating new look at the history of medicine, David Wootton argues that for more than 2300 years doctors have relied on their patients' misplaced faith in their ability to cure. Over and over again major discoveries which could save lives were met with professional resistance. And this is not just a phenomenon of the distant past. The first patient effectively treated with penicillin was in the 1880s; the second not until the 1940s. There was overwhelming evidence that smoking caused lung cancer in the 1950s; but it took thirty years for doctors to accept the claim that smoking was addictive. In the 1960s there was the notorious thalidomide tragedy, while today there is the ongoing problem of unnecessary operations, especially in the United States - and this all at a time of rapidly rising healthcare costs. As Wootton graphically illustrates, throughout history and right up to the present, bad medical practice has often been deeply entrenched and stubbornly resistant to evidence. This is a bold and challenging book - and the first general history of medicine to acknowledge the frequency with which doctors do harm. - ;A sad but fascinating story of centuries of missed opportunities, unnecessary suffering and misplaced faith in outlandish remedies. - Nick Rennison, Sunday Times Culture;The historical catastrophe of medicine has never been so excitingly and stirringly told. - Druin Birch, Times Literary Supplement;David Wotton [creates] a genuinely thrilling adventure out of the abysmal failings of doctors over the past 2000 years. - Druin Birch, Times Literary Supplement;A very stimulating and thought-provoking book. - Theodore Dalrymple, Sunday Telegraph;Ought to be required reading for every first year medical student. - British Medical Journal;lucid, elegantly written and pleasingly slim book - Will Cohu, Sunday Telegraph

Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates

Bad Medicine : Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates

Niccolò Machiavelli

Here are The Prince and the most important Discourses, newly translated into spare, vivid English by one of the most gifted historians of his generation. Why a new translation? "Machiavelli was never the dull, worthy, pedantic author who appears in the pages of other translations", says David Wootton in his Introduction. "In the pages that follow I have done my best to let him speak in his own voice." (And indeed, Wootton's Machiavelli literally does so when the occasion demands: Renderings of that most problematic of words, virtù, are in each instance followed by the Italian). Notes, a map, and an altogether remarkable Introduction, no less authoritative for being grippingly readable, help make this edition an ideal first encounter with Machiavelli for any student of history and political theory.

Selected Political Writings

David Wootton guides us through four centuries of Western thought to show how new ideas about politics, ethics, and economics stepped into a gap opened up by religious conflict and the Scientific Revolution. As ideas about godliness and Aristotelian virtue faded, theories about the rational pursuit of power, pleasure, and profit moved to the fore.

Insatiable Appetities from Machiavelli to Madison

Power, Pleasure, and Profit

Thomas More

Wootton's new translation brings out the liveliness of More's work and offers an accurate and reliable version of a masterpiece of social theory. His edition is further distinguished by the inclusion of a translation of Erasmus's 'The Sileni Of Alcibades', a work very close in sentiment to Utopia, and one immensely influential in the sixteenth century. This attractive combination suits the edition especially well for use in Renaissance and reformation courses. Wootton's introduction simultaneously provides a remarkably useful guide to anyone's first reading of More's mysterious work and advance an original argument on the origins and purpose of Utopia which no one interested in sixteenth-century social theory will want to miss.

Utopia

Presents unabridged works and substantive abridgments in preeminent translations, along with balanced, lucid, sophisticated introductions. This book includes a wide and balanced selection of many of the more important texts of modern political thought. To its great credit, it provides pertinent excerpts from frequently neglected authors, such as Calvin and Hume, which it nicely juxtaposes appear to be good, and the introductions to each section help to situate the writers in their historical and intellectual context and to alert students to some of the central issues that arise in the texts. This book offers an economical and useful approach to modern political thought.

Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche

Modern Political Thought

“Demonstrates an awesome command of the vast Galileo literature . . . [Wootton] excels in boldly speculating about Galileo’s motives” (The New York Times Book Review). Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the center of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a “new physics”; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Wootton also reveals much that is new—from Galileo’s premature Copernicanism to a previously unrecognized illegitimate daughter—and, controversially, rejects the long-established belief that Galileo was a good Catholic. Absolutely central to Galileo’s significance—and to science more broadly—is the telescope, the potential of which Galileo was the first to grasp. Wootton makes clear that it totally revolutionized and galvanized scientific endeavor to discover new and previously unimagined facts. Drawing extensively on Galileo’s voluminous letters, many of which were self-censored and sly, this is an original, arresting, and highly readable biography of a difficult, remarkable Renaissance genius. Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in the Astronautics and Astronomy Category “Fascinating reading . . . With this highly adventurous portrayal of Galileo’s inner world, Wootton assures himself a high rank among the most radical recent Galileo interpreters . . . Undoubtedly Wootton makes an important contribution to Galileo scholarship.” —America magazine “Wootton’s biography . . . is engagingly written and offers fresh insights into Galileo’s intellectual development.” —Standpoint magazine

Watcher of the Skies

Galileo

A reinterpretation of Sarpi's life as expressing a carefully thought out hostility to doctrinal religion.

Between Renaissance and Enlightenment

Paolo Sarpi

The seventeenth century was England's century of revolution, an era in which the nation witnessed protracted civil wars, the execution of a king, and the declaration of a short-lived republic. During this period of revolutionary crisis, political writers of all persuasions hoped to shape the outcome of events by the force of their arguments. To read the major political theorists of Stuart England is to be plunged into a world in which many of our modern conceptions of political rights and social change are first formulated. David Wootton's masterly compilation of speeches, essays, and fiercely polemical pamphlets--organized into chapters focusing on the main debates of the century--represents the first attempt to present in one volume a broad collection of Stuart political thought. In bringing together abstract theorizing and impassioned calls to arms, anonymous tract writers and King James I, Wootton has produced a much-needed collection; in combination with the editor's thoughtful running commentary and invaluable Introduction, its texts bring to life a crucial period in the formation of our modern liberal and conservative theories.

An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England

Divine Right and Democracy

Voltaire

This lively new translation of Voltaire's satiric masterpiece is accompanied by a short selection of writings of each of the most prominent optimists to whom Voltaire was responding -- Leibniz, Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, Pope, Wolff, Rousseau, and Malebranche -- and thus offers a better perspective of the intellectual context in which Candide was written, and of its place in Enlightenment though, than does any other edition.

Candide and Related Texts

Christopher Marlowe

With The English Faust Book

Doctor Faustus

Michael Cyril William Hunter

The rise of atheism and unbelief is a key factor in the development of the modern world, yet it has been relatively little explored by historians. This book presents a series of studies of irreligious ideas in various parts of Europe during the two centuries following the Reformation.

Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment

Through a judicious selection of the classic essays from 1787-1788 by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay in defence of the new federal Constitution -- together with key writings by the Anti-Federalists -- Wootton captures the essentials of the 18th-century American debate on federalism in this modernised edition and frames it with a brilliant and engaging Introduction. Includes the U. S. Constitution.

David Wootton

Books

Your next favorite book is out there