Dear Fellow Historians (with apologies to all those non-historians among you lovely people):
As some of you may have noticed, yesterday I knocked together a list of what I consider basic and introductory readings on the history of science and magic (to use a somewhat vague but convenient umbrella term). Dividing the compilation into only two periods – ‘Early modern’ and ‘Modern’ –, my initial instinct was to more or less omit the medieval and pre-medieval contexts. This was mainly to keep the list as succinct as possible, but also with a broad audience rather than specialists in mind, for whom it will be hard enough to get their heads around ‘ways of being in the world’ that appear even more remote from our current ‘naturalistic’ mainstream standards than, say, the early days of the Royal Society.
The list is bound to grow and to be constantly revised, and I’m currently considering to include at least a handful references to the best studies of ancient and medieval occult sciences (including books by authorities on antiquity like Lloyd, Dodds, Luck and the Edelsteins, but let me know if I missed someone!). Where I really could use your help is with literature specifically on the medieval context, apart from what’s covered in the first volumes of Thorndike’s classic but now outdated survey, and in Daston and Park’s marvellous (no pun intended) Wonders and the Order of Nature.
The reading list no doubt currently also reflects my own specialization, i.e. the history of the human sciences particularly in the long nineteenth century, so I would also love to hear about some of your favourite books on early modern astrology (particularly its use in medicine), and alchemy – until Jenny Rampling’s Very Short Introduction to alchemy for the Oxford UP series and her other two (!) books are coming out.
Suggested monographs for all periods should be authoritative but not too technical (and ideally though not necessarily take a cross-national perspective), so that even novices will be able to take away useful insights along the lines of our historiographical ideals.
Please let me know what you think are the best books in a comment below or on the Basic Readings page, briefly explaining why you recommend them. You can also just tweet me or post your suggestions on Facebook, where I will repeat this appeal shortly.
Many thanks and looking forward to hearing from you!
Andreas
