In the Know
Simon Schaffer, 10 November 1994
Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture
by William Eamon.
Princeton, 490 pp., £38.50, July 1994,0 691 03402 8 Show More
by William Eamon.
Princeton, 490 pp., £38.50, July 1994,
The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire
by Pamela Smith.
Princeton, 308 pp., £30, July 1994,0 691 05691 9 Show More
by Pamela Smith.
Princeton, 308 pp., £30, July 1994,
“... of trade and finance in their polity. Becher offered them recipes: direct state control of the urban workshops, the establishment of lucrative slave colonies in the New World, systems of credit to guarantee mercantile enterprise. And he also had a language in which to speak of these newfangled projects: the vocabulary and techniques of alchemy, which ... ”