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Description
Shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by the Financial Times and BBC History MagazineA groundbreaking, global retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, exploding the myth that science began in Europe.When we think about the origins of modern science, we usually begin in Europe, praising the great minds of Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein. But this narrow Western gaze is only one part of the story. The reality was an utterly global, nonlinear pattern of cross-fertilization, competition, cooperation and outright conflict. Each rupture in history carved fresh channels for global exchange. Award-winning professor James Poskett celebrates how scientists from Africa, America, Asia, and the Pacific were integral to this very human story. We meet Graman Kwasi, the African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria; Hantaro Nagaoka, the Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom; and Zhao Zhongyao, the Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter. Horizons is a richly informative and timely reminder that scientific achievement is, and has always been, a global endeavor."Superb...This is not just a history of science. It is a history of the modern world seen through the lens of science.” — Los Angeles Review of Books “This treasure trove of a book puts the case persuasively and compellingly that modern science did not develop solely in Europe. Hugely important.”—Jim Al-Khalili Read more
Publisher : Mariner Books
Publication date : September 9, 2025
Edition : Reprint
Language : English
Print length : 464 pages
ISBN-10 : 0063470497
ISBN-13 : 91
Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 1.07 x 9 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #300,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #169 in Expeditions & Discoveries World History (Books) #424 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books) #588 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Kindle
In a remarkably detailed narrative. Poskett makes a simple (yet powerful) assertion - the way in which we have understood scientific progress is incomplete at best and has always been told from a Eurocentric perspective. Furthermore, he clearly shows how the religious and political views of the times (deliberately or not) influenced how Europeans recorded history. The central theme of the book is that modern science developed mostly through the exchange of ideas between different cultures than acknowledged. It may seem like a nuanced academic argument, but it has significant import. Far beyond science. For one, it forces us to think how Western historians have recorded East (and vice-a-versa); Secondly, the slow but sure separation of religion and science is seen as a strong undercurrent throughout the book. But most importantly, the book provides an interesting view to understand the impact of religion, trade, culture, societies, and science - in the same frame. That is ambitious, but Poskett provides a very inspired and informative attempt. In some ways, the themes are a different abstraction of another favorite book of mine - Where Good Ideas Come From - that also emphasized the influence of interactions as opposed to individual genius. Crisscrossing Aztec, Persian, Indian, Chinese, and a multitude of cultures from Africa and Pacific, Poskett provides a view into how the progress and discoveries influenced European thinking, though most recorded narratives do not even acknowledge their influence let alone give the appropriate credit. The book provides excellent examples drawn from classifications, math, physics, medicine, cartography and just the basic principles of experimentation. Where the author succeeds in painting a very broad picture, not all topics get equal treatment (for example, would have expected a more thorough discussion on influence of Ayurveda and Chinese medicine's influences). Secondly, almost all interactions are still seen from a European-X manner, except discussions on Indo-Persian influences, for example. Nevertheless, the role of religion, exploration, colonization in how the world was shaped and how our understanding of the cultures got distorted is an informative and sobering read (Turns out Catholics destroying Aztec artifacts was no different from Taliban destroying Buddhist artifacts and perhaps scores of modern day examples; sadly, we still have a lot to learn from and change). The detailed citations, rare pictures/plates and a very lucid narrative makes this fairly long book a very interesting and informative one.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2022 by Jijnasu Forever
Format: Hardcover
Lots of in depth information and well researched stories. The author draws attention to a new vision of science: it was not just in Europe that discovered everything. The scientists who became famous like Newton, Darwin, Navigators like Cook, were based on local, indigenous, and other remote scientists. At one point the author mixes ideology with scientific theories. His theory is that we have to be careful how we tell the story and praise certain people and visions, but he himself makes the mistake he points out so much. At the end of the book, he cites Brazil as a government that persecuted scientists and deforested the Amazon. And this is far from what really happened in Brazil. Believing in certain media narratives can make us enter into the vision with the same bias as the Europeans who told the traditional history of science. Today, it is easy to see the narratives of the past, but when we are in time, in the turmoil of the present, we cannot see that we have fallen into these same spells, where ancient authors also slipped.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2023 by rodrigo caruso duprat
Format: Paperback
Through research, well written, beautiful historic illustrations included as well
Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2025 by mj
Format: Kindle
If there is at all a defect, it is mostly due to vast more stories. Exceptual instances of the experience in other than anglosaxon or french science. I only wished the author publishes a second volume, I missed stories from South América and Africa.
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2022 by Abraham
Format: Hardcover
I enjoyed this book. It provides a different, very interesting perspective on the history of science. The book is well-written and I liked the author's conversational tone. Although I am not sure how well the book supported the idea of the interconnectedness of science, it was fun to learn about the social and scientific aspects of nations that don’t typically make it into most history of science books. The part of the book I liked a little less was the history of evolution. I would have liked to have seen a little more about Alfred Russel Wallace. There was also too much content on social Darwinism. Nonetheless, this is a book well worth reading and I recommend it for anyone interested in the history of science. Thank you to Netgalley and Mariner Books for the advance reader copy.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2022 by Steve G
Format: Kindle
Horizons, by James Poskett, is a welcome corrective to the Eurocentric history of science many of us learned, as well as, albeit to a lesser extent, the idea of the great genius (almost always a man) making great discoveries independent of all else. Instead, as Poskett mostly does a good job of showing, as he puts it, “Science was not a product of a unique European culture [but] has always depended upon bringing together people and ideas from different cultures around the world,” was shaped by global history, and often progressed thanks to the efforts of “scientists who have been written out of history.” Early on, Poskett makes several points clear: that this idea of an “exchange” between cultures was not always mutually beneficial but often took the form of one culture exploiting another and that when contributions of non-Western cultures are acknowledged, they’re often “relegated to the distant past [and thus] reinforce the narrative that places like China and the Middle East have little to do with the history of modern science.” After the introduction, The book is structured chronologically into four sections, 1450—1700, 1650—188, 1790—1914, 1914—2000 and ranges across the globe. The first opens with the Aztecs and then after a brief foray into their natural science, texts, medical knowledge, moves to how the European colonization of the New World (and the “accompanying appropriation of Aztec and Inca knowledge) prompted European scholars to “turn away from ancient texts and start investigating the natural world for themselves.” From there, he explores how the “new era of contact between Europe and Asia had an equally profound effect on the development of science.” For instance, Poskett notes how Copernicus cited nearly a half-dozen Islamic authors in his famed work. While hitting some of the expected settings, such as Baghdad and Istanbul, Poskett also presents the important astronomy carried out in Timbuktu in the 16th century. From there moving forward in time to the 18th century, we pass through the advances made in China and India. The next section incorporates Polynesia, Mesoamerica, and the Arctic, emphasizing the ways in which this period, often seen as the rise of modern science thanks to Western Europe, had Europeans consistently relying on the knowledge and work of indigenous people, such as “French surveyors . . . depended upon Inca astronomical traditions . . . Captain Cook relied on the navigational expertise of a Polynesian priest and … Russian explorers recruited Indigenous people to guide them across the frozen landscape.” In the third section, Poskett focuses early on evolution and shows how, despite the “Darwin invented the idea” simplification often taught in Western schools, the idea had been percolating around for a while, including in Egypt, Russia, and South America and was also how Darwin’s theory was not just presaged but strengthened/modified in non-Western as well, such as Japan. Then, Poskett moves into chemistry and physics. One of the nice elements here is not just a non-Western focus (the chapter covers contributions to the physical sciences, from Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Japan Colonial India) but also a non-male one, as several of the key scientists were women. This welcome de-erasure of contributions by women continues in the final section, which focuses a lot on physics and genetics and covers development in Communist Russia, China, India, Mexico, and Japan. In this section we also get one of the most overt examples of Non-Western erasure when an American physicist awarded a Noble Prize for the “discovery” of the positron retracted his early statement that he’d found it by “accident” to acknowledge he’d been inspired by the experiments of a Chinese researcher. We also learn how the poster board for lone genius, Albert Einstein, was heavily influenced by the work of non-Westerners, not just in his physics (where he collaborated with an Indian scientist, Bose, on one of his last great discoveries) but also in his later-life politics. This great cultural mixing has become especially prevalent recently in space exploration, where non-Western countries are not only sending up their own satellites and probes, but where large missions are made up of wide-ranging collaborations. For instance, The United Arab Emirates recruited scientists/engineers from the US and South Korea, then launched a probe to Mars via a Japanese rocket, though Poskett worries about both the motivations for such programs and their cost in a time where priorities might better be shifted elsewhere (such as battling the impact of climate change). This wide-picture view is one of the strengths of Horizons. Poskett doesn’t simply range widely geographically, he also pulls back and examines how large historical trends, such as nationalism or the Cold War have had an impact on the development of modern science. He uses those same trends to look forward a bit with regard to space exploration and climate change, as noted, but also the rising importance of A.I. in a thoughtful, neutral fashion. As noted at the start, Horizons is a welcome text in how it broadens the view so many westerners have on modern science — that it was “birthed” in the West and has always reached its apex there. Here and there I thought Poskett might have pushed things a bit too far in their interrelatedness, but those moments were few and far between and far outnumbered by the wealth of examples he offers up. The prose could have been a bit more engaging, but it certainly was adequate to its purpose. I also appreciated how rather than a litany of generic cultural achievements, Poskett did a nice job of bringing forward the actual people involved in those achievements so that they felt more alive and personal, much more than simple names or blank stand-in for a particular culture or region. Recommended.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2023 by B. Capossere
Format: Kindle
The thesis of Dr. Poskett’s book is that modern science was not invented in Europe, but rather was a global endeavor, with substantial contributions from multiple peoples throughout the world. Thus, at the beginning of the book he states: “From popular history to academic textbooks, the idea that modern science was invented in Europe remains one of the most widespread myths in modern history. Yet there is very little evidence to support it.” Throughout the rest of the book, Dr. Poskett simply ignores all the evidence that supports that “myth,” likely convincing only those with a poor understanding of the history and/or definition of science. Charles Murray actually quantified human accomplishment in multiple fields of intellectual endeavor in his book, appropriately titled, “Human Accomplishment” and noted that whether measured in people or events, 97% of significant accomplishment in the sciences between 800 B.C. and 1950 A.D. occurred in Europe and North America, with the vast majority occurring after the 16th century. If he were to categorize by ancestry, rather than by geography, the figure would likely be in excess of 99% of scientific accomplishment coming from Europeans and the European diaspora. Of course, 99% is not 100%. Some scientific advances were made by non-Europeans, and these are the primary focus of Dr. Poskett’s book. Dr. Poskett begins his account of the history of science near the conventional timing of the scientific revolution in Europe, which is usually marked by the publication of De Revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus, which placed the sun rather than the Earth at the center of our solar system (the universe at the time). This marked the beginning of astonishing advances in multiple fields of science, which occurred overwhelmingly in Europe for the next ~300 years. Instead during these three centuries, Dr. Poskett describes the discoveries made by the peoples of Africa and the Americas. These discoveries consisted largely of the medicinal properties of the local flora and knowledge of the local geography. While such knowledge is important, it is the same knowledge that people all over the world have gained through trial and error since time immemorial. Thus, it is not appropriate to consider this as a contribution to modern science, which involves testable explanations and predictions, as was occurring in Europe. Dr. Poskett begins his accounting of what could be considered actual modern science in the 19th century, when some advances began to occur outside of Europe in countries like China, India, and Japan, and he discusses many of these advances in detail. Curiously, he also discusses Russian science in detail as well, including the Ilya Mechnikov’s contributions to our understanding of immunology. With Russia lying at the eastern end of the European continent and most of its territory in Asia, it seems that Dr. Poskett may have decided to categorize Russia as a non-European country. For all its failings, I still recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the history of science, because you will discover some very interesting stories that are not typically covered in other books on the subject. However, for anyone interested in acquiring a more realistic understanding of the scientific revolution, I highly recommend John Gribbon’s “The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of its Greatest Inventors.”
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Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2023 by sciencedude
Format: Hardcover
The text aims at being easy to digest, but language and wordings are sometimes embarrassing - "In France, Rene Descart developed a new way of doing Geometry" - nor does it add credibility to write about Moctezuma's morning activities. Calling Copernicus "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" is a kind of cultural appropriation. This goes throughout in the sources. Seems the author has been totally limited to English translations. To dig into history you need to know one ore more of Sanskrit, Chinese, Latin, Greek etc. The starting page is naiv. Saying that western science is regarded to have started between 1500 and 1700 is an insult to Archimedes and even Democritus
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Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024 by Tunturi