This heavily revised third edition of an award-winning text offers a keen insight into the development of scientific thought in early modern Europe. Including coverage of the central scientific figures of the time, including Copernicus, Kelper, Galileo, Newton and Bacon, this book provides a comprehensive overview of how the Scientific Revolution happened and why. Highlighting Europe's colonial and trade expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Peter Dear traces the revolution in scientific thought that changed the natural world from something to be contemplated into something to be used.

This book is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Early Modern History, European History, History of Medicine, History of Science and Technology and the History and Philosophy of Science. The first edition was the winner of the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize of the History of Science Society.