Heralds, Roots and TriumphsThe Fellowship. The Story of a Revolution by John GribbinReview by: Vivian NuttonNotes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jan. 22, 2006), pp. 107-108Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20462563 .

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NOTES & RECORDS Notes Rec. R. Soc. (2006) 60, 107-108

OF THE ROYAL doi: 10. 1098/rsnr.2005.0123 SOCIETY Published online 18 January 2006

BOOK REVIEW

HERALDS, ROOTS AND TRIUMPHS

John Gribbin, The Fellowship. The story of a revolution.

Allen Lane, 2005. pp. xiv+ 336, ?20.

ISBN 0-7139-9745-1.

reviewed by Vivian Nutton*

The Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London,

210 Euston Road, London NW] 2BE, UK

John Gribbin's latest survey of science is

really two separate projects. The first is a

story of great discoveries, and of the

triumphs of experimentation over book

learning in the seventeenth century; the

second is a study of the first half century of

the Royal Society. There is much to be

admired here: the writing is clear, even if

there are some jarring personal interven

tions, and the presentation of mathematical

and astronomical theories is an excellent

introduction to some complex topics. The

major figures-Gilbert, Bacon, Harvey,

Wilkins, Hooke, Wren, Newton and

Halley-are sketched in a lively manner,

with some nice telling anecdotes. Those

unfamiliar with the early years of the Royal

Society will find this a helpful introduction.

But the linkage between the two parts

serves only to restrict the scope of each

story, and readers with more than a very

basic knowledge will feel frustrated at the

missed opportunities to introduce more

nuances into this somewhat old-fashioned

account. The brief biographies of the

founder members of the Royal Society

could well have been extended to give a

clearer view of the work of the Society

based on Michael Hunter's researches into

its membership. Hooke is the central figure

*ucgavnu @ucl.ac.uk

in all this, but Gribbin adds nothing to the

recent outpouring of writing about him.

The first third of the book is devoted to

Gilbert, Bacon and Harvey, and to their

allegedly new methods of investigation.

Harvey' s embryology, in which he used

years of dissection experience, is passed

over briefly in favour of his work on the

heart, where both Harvey' s bookishness and

his debts to others are underplayed. But by

emphasizing only experimentation, Gribbin misses the chance to introduce the neophyte

to the work of Paula Findlen, Lorraine

Daston and Katherine Park, to name but

three, who have explored the changing

nature of curiosity at this time. This was

an important element in the early years of

the Royal Society, as it was also for the

German Academia Curiosorum (later Leo

poldina), founded in 1652. Charles Web

ster' s The great instauration, a classic study

of the religious and scientific interactions in

the 1640s and 1650s, does not figure

anywhere, despite its importance in estab

lishing links between Bacon and the

scientists in Oxford. Similarly, Robert

Frank's Harvey and the Oxford physiol

ogists is also missing from the bibliography,

an indication of the relatively little attention

given in this book to the life sciences.

(Alumni of Cambridge, home of Harvey,

Newton and Barrow, may also be surprised

107 C) 2006 The Royal Society

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108 Book Review

to find an outline only of Oxford on the

cover.) But the book's biggest weakness is also

its strength. It is parochial, concerned with

the dealings of a small group, mainly in

London, who are proclaimed the English

'founding fathers of modern western

science'. Apart from Galileo, who has

a chapter to himself, developments in

mainland Europe are largely ignored,

despite the near-contemporary foundation

of similar societies in Italy, Germany

and France. Although this makes possible

a strong narrative of the growth both of

experimental science and the Royal

Society, this account is misleading in its

stress on the uniqueness of the English

situation. Oldenburg, for instance, is dis

cussed mainly in connection with his

dispute with Hooke, and the exchanges

with the Leopoldina and the Academie des

Sciences are downplayed.

But within the limits he has set himself

John Gribbin has written a clear and concise

account that has the power to stimulate its

readers to ask for more.

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