Word: cohen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Cohen emphasizes several times early in his book that he is a historian by profession, less a theorist than a paradigmatic scholar. After setting forth his criteria for a scientific revolution, Cohen presents a series of case studies of revolutions and near revolutions, finally evaluating the critical perceptions of the concept of scientific revolution...
...scientist to be regarded as a revolutionary, his theory must gain acceptance both by other scholars and scientists, and ultimately by the public. Cohen's skills as a historian are abundantly obvious as he puts men like Newton, Galileo, Darwin and Freud to the revolutionary test by scrutinizing their own writings and the responses of both their contemporaries and historians to their work...
...Cohen is a superior scholar and his case studies make for stimulating reading. Particularly noteworthy are the chapters on 17th century figures including an especially pleasing section on Vesalius, Paracelsus and Harvey. The chapters on Darwin and Freud, and the saga of sea floor spreading, a revolution in earth science, are also splendidly wrought, commendable for their cogency and conciseness. Cohen's analysis focuses on revolutionary significance, but he simultaneously yields a wealth of stimulating narrative history...
Revolutions in Science succeeds because Cohen does not belief that science should be regarded only in its own terms. Science is inevitably bound up in other areas of intellectual history. Cohen embellishes his discussion of scientists from Copernicus to Einstein with reference to Thuycidides, Plato, Tacitus, Montaigne, English political history, Renaissance history, Jonathan Swift, Ben Jonson's masques, Rousseau, Voltaire, Samuel Johnson and even the rebel yell of confederate soldiers in the American Civil...
...Cohen was relentless in his research. He traveled to Darwin's library in Kent, England to examine the copy of Das Kapital that Karl Marx presented to the naturalist. Revolutions in Science is the culmination of a lifetime of serious, inspired scholarship--and the results show...