George Sarton (1884–1956)

Sartons Buch ‚A History of Science‘ begibt sich auf eine weite Reise zurück in die Vergangenheit, aus der wir mit einem reichen Bestand an Wissenselementen zurückkehren. Es zeichnet sich nicht zuletzt durch den eloquenten Stil seines Autors aus. Dass man sich beim Lesen oft zu verlieren scheint in der Aufzählung von Namen, Werken, Daten oder Orten mag die große Meisterschaft, die der Autor hier mit der Wissenschaftsgeschichte ausficht, kaum schmälern. Jeder, der sich mit der Geschichte der Wissenschaften auch nur am Rande beschäftigen will, sollte dieses Buch gelesen haben.… (mer)

The author of this book discusses hellenistic science and literary culture with an incredibly broad scope. That includes science, history, medicine, literature, philosophy, mathematics, poetry etc., so it's presumably as complete as any book will ever be on that score. Another good thing about this book is that the author on many occasions traces the development of specific traditions from the hellenistic age to the european renaissance, a very useful exercise for students of european science. He also frequently offers useful reminders of how many hellenistic works have been lost and how fragmentary our knowledge of hellenistic learning consequently is. The bibliography is also valuable, but it is of course outdated since it's an old book.

But the problem with this book is that it's almost like an encyclopedia. The author has chosen to concentrate on the individuals who wrote science and literature. This means that he presents great amounts of biographical details and discusses selected works in depth. But he says almost nothing about the political and institutional context of hellenistic learning except for brief sections on the library in Alexandria and Roman libraries.

Perhaps this point of criticism is a bit anachronistic since social history and the study of "ideas in context" didn't really exist in 1955 when this book was written. It may also be difficult to make broad generalizations about hellenistic science and literature with any confidence. But even so I was a bit disappointed to find that this book lacks a general overview perspective. If that's what you are looking for, I would instead recommend Green's Alexander to Actium which contains good chapters on hellenistic science and philosophy.… (mer)