The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West

Toby E. Huff

doi:10.1017/CBO9781316257098

This 2003 study examines the long-standing question of why modern science arose only in the West and not in the civilizations of Islam and China, despite the fact that medieval Islam and China were more scientifically advanced. To explain this outcome, Tony E. Huff explores the cultural - religious, legal, philosophical, and institutional - contexts within which science was practised in Islam, China, and the West. He finds in the history of law and the European cultural revolution of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries major clues as to why the ethos of science arose in the West, permitting the breakthrough to modern science that did not occur elsewhere. This line of inquiry leads to novel ideas about the centrality of the legal concept of corporation, which is unique to the West and gave rise to the concepts of neutral space and free inquiry.

‘Huff cogently substantiates how the underlying cultural values of a society and civilization assist or check scientific inquiry, and thus discloses modern science as an intercivilizational phenomenon.’

Source: Choice

‘… Huff provides a thorough, coherent hypothesis and thus helps sharpen the debates on the rise of modern science.’

Source: MESA Bulletin

‘… Huff’s comparison of Catholic Europe, Islamic Asia, and Confucian China in terms of natural philosophy and educational institutions is timely and rewarding …’.

Benjamin Elman Source: American Journal of Sociology

‘… Huff’s excellent book is a comparative study of the development of these exclusive commitments within the thoughts, institutions, and beliefs about the nature of existence and of man in the West, and of the contrasting consequences of the different commitments and beliefs of Islam and China. His scope is impressive.’

A. C. Crombie Source: Journal of Asian Studies

‘… provides a definitive, albeit implicit, commentary on the thesis much beloved by some theologians that the Christian doctrine of creation was responsible for the rise of modern science...casts light on the general theme of the origins of modernity … of sustained interest and full of copious reference to primary and secondary literature …’

Source: Religious Studies

‘… essential reading …’.

Source: Scientific and Medical Network Review

The Rise of Early Modern Science

Islam, China and the West

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Dedication
pp v-vi

Contents
pp vii-x

List of illustrations
pp xi-xii

Preface to the second edition
pp xiii-xvi

Preface to the first edition
pp xvii-xviii

Acknowledgments
pp xix-xx

Introduction
pp 1-7

1 - The comparative study of science
pp 8-46

2 - Arabic science and the Islamic world
pp 47-88

3 - Reason and rationality in Islam and the West
pp 89-117

4 - The European legal revolution
pp 118-146

5 - Madrasas, universities, and science
pp 147-208

6 - Cultural climates and the ethos of science
pp 209-239

7 - Science and civilization in China
pp 240-288

8 - Science and social organization in China
pp 289-324

9 - The rise of early modern science
pp 325-361

Epilogue: educational reform and attitudes toward science in the Muslim world and China since the eighteenth century
pp 362-384

Selected bibliography
pp 385-406

Index
pp 407-425

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