Using data on the 'career' paths of one thousand 'leading scientists' from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the 'rise of modern science' is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein's modern world-system; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
CITATION STYLE
Taylor, P. J., Hoyler, M., & Evans, D. M. (2008). A geohistorical study of “the rise of modern science”: Mapping scientific practice through urban networks, 1500-1900. Minerva, 46(4), 391–410. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-008-9109-8
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