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A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechanics", by Clifford D. Conner. New York: Nation Books, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, 2005. $17.95. Pp. xiii, 554.
"What Science? What History? What People?" The heading of the first chapter of this important book sets the tone of what is to follow. Conner acknowledges his indebtedness to A. L. Morton's A People's History of England and to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (the book has been warmly endorsed by Zinn and is, in its approach, closer to Zinn). Conner sets out to debunk the myth of the great man in the history of science.
The author distinguishes between people's history and social history as overlapping but not identical approaches to understanding the past. People's history emphasizes the collective nature of the production of scientific knowledge, while social history provides the social context. He gives as one example knowledge of the moon and its relation to tides by early fishermen and navigators (collective knowledge), contrasting it with development of the first scientific knowledge by Galileo and other celebrities.
Starting with hunter-gatherers (foragers), Conner cites the incredibly detailed knowledge of nature evinced by modern foragers studied by Marshall Sahlins, Jared Diamond, and others. This knowledge, we may assume, was essential to the survival of their prehistoric forebears. It represents the earliest body of scientific knowledge, and was clearly democratic in nature.
The ending of the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago, paved the way for the first agriculture. The enhanced food production that this made possible led to the first class-stratified societies. Among the major scientific advances that ensued were writing and mathematics. These are both now believed to have originated, not only within an elite priestly class, as formerly supposed, but, more...