Landscapes of Knowledge

Abstract

Space is rapidly becoming a central organizing principle for making sense of scientific knowledge. The recently published third volume of The Cambridge History of Science, which deals with “Early Modern Science” (Park & Daston, 2006b), is indicative. Its editors have chosen to devote nine chapters to such subjects as markets, piazzas, and villages; houses and households; libraries and lecture halls; courts and academies; anatomy theaters and botanical gardens; and coffeehouses and print shops. All are interrogated as critical sites of scientific knowledge. This emphasis, standing in marked contrast to earlier heroic narratives of scientific progress and great-name history, enables the editors to speak of the ways in which what they call the “geography of changes in natural knowledge closely tracked that of religious, military, and economic developments” (Park & Daston, 2006a, p. 7). And it raises profound questions that go beyond the mere charting of place-based activities.