A widespread sympathy for a neglected figure of seventeenth-century science is being displaced by something more positive--a mixture of astonishment at the extraordinary range and diversity of his talents, esteem for the originality and acumen of his science, admiration for his administrative capability and civic integrity, and fascination at the energy, emotion, and frailty evident in a life fully engaged with the world of Restoration London. Comparisons with his enemy Newton are giving way to an appreciation of Hooke on his own terms, passionately occupied with experiment, invention, argument, writing, teaching, and earning a living as a scientist in a competitive world. The diversity of Hooke's activities has presented a serious obstacle to previous attempts to deal with his life and work. As Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society, Gresham Professor of Geometry, Surveyor to the City of London, author and inventor, Hooke challenges the boundaries of modern expertise. This book takes a different approach, by juxtaposing four accounts of the man from different but intersecting viewpoints. Unlike the aloof and distant demeanor adopted by Newton, concealing his views and speaking through surrogates, Hooke was a public man, bustling though the London streets, talking and arguing in coffee houses, lecturing to whatever audience might attend at Gresham College, performing (the theatrical connotation is appropriate) experiments at the assembly of the Royal Society, being lampooned in a London playhouse. Each of the authors has a record of specialist research on aspects of Hooke and they have come together to provide a significant revaluation of the most important facets of his life and work: his career as a public man, his instrument designing and making, his scientific thought, and the private world of his personal life, his illnesses and his medications. The year 2003 is the tercentenary of Hooke's death.

London's Leonardo: The Life and Work of Robert Hooke

JARDINE, Lisa

Hunter, Michael

BENNETT, Jim

COOPER, MICHAEL

Biographies & Memoirs

Oxford University Press

Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice

This book provides an approachable exposition of the rationale of textual editing with special reference to texts from between 1550-1800. The volume explains how manuscript and printed texts were produced, indicating the implications of this for their editorial treatment and giving practical advice on how texts should be prepared and presented.

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

Product Description The modern imagination of classical Chinese thought has long been dominated by Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, and other so-called “Masters” of the Warring States period. Michael Hunter argues that this approach neglects the far more central role of poetry, and the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) in particular, in the formation of the philosophical tradition. Through a new reading of its ideology and poetics, Hunter reestablishes the Shijing as a work of major intellectual-historical significance. The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought demonstrates how Shi poetry weaves a vision of society united at every level by the innate and universal impulse to come home. The Shi immersed early thinkers in a world of movement and flow in order to teach them that the most powerful current of all was the gravitational pull of a virtuous king, without whom people can never truly feel at home. Hunter traces the profound influence of the Shi ideology across numerous sources of classical Chinese thought, which he recasts as a network centered on the Shi. Reframing the tradition in this way reveals how poetry shaped ancient Chinese thinkers’ conception of the world and their place within it.This book offers both a sweeping critique of how classical Chinese thought is commonly understood and a powerful new way of studying it. Review An outstanding book focused on reconstructing the worldview of the Shijing and the role that worldview played in the development of early Chinese philosophy. This is a tremendously exciting work that will force a rethinking of many assumptions in the field concerning how we understand early Chinese thought. -- Michael Puett, coeditor of The Huainanzi and Textual Production in Early ChinaThis is a remarkably constructive book. Building upon the achievements of recent revisionist scholarship regarding the Shi and armed with the tools of the digital humanities, Hunter restores the Shi to its rightful place at the center of early Chinese thought as the text to which all other texts return. -- Griet Vankeerberghen, coeditor of Chang'an 26 BCE: An Augustan Age in ChinaHunter presents a radically different perspective on early Chinese literature, putting the Shi center stage and reading all other traditions through that genre. This shift is likely to generate lively debate in the entire field of early China studies and has the potential to open up new avenues of research. -- Matthias Richter, author of The Embodied Text: Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese ManuscriptsThis is an extremely refreshing and inspiring placement of the Odes at the center of thought from the Warring States into the early Chinese imperial period. Hunter convincingly shows how the notion of coming home pervades the Shi and, through them, a wide array of other texts. By doing this, he also reconsiders the dominance of all too familiar boundaries and academic disciplines. -- Carine Defoort, coeditor of The Legitimacy of Chinese PhilosophyReestablishing the Shijing as a text of major philosophical significance, The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought will not only incite vehement debates among scholars working on early Chinese thought, but also has the potential to open up new avenues of research in the entire field of early Chinese studies. -- Lisa Chu Shen ― China Review About the Author Michael Hunter is associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. He is the author of Confucius Beyond the Analects (2017) and coeditor of Confucius and the Analects Revisited: New Perspectives on Composition, Dating, and Authorship (2018).

Some students regard Jeremiah as among the more formidable books of the Old Testament. Yet anyone reading or hearing news headlines today will find much that is familiar in the prophet's diatribes against the evils of his time. Injustice and corruption among the leaders of the nation, wars and violence, greed, self-seeking, oppression and exploitation of the poor by the rich, and above all false worship of ""idols"" instead of obedience to the true God who had promised his people peace and plenty. The guide draws out the main themes of the book and points up the relevance of its message for modern-day Christians, with special notes on the editorial and historical background and on Jeremiah's understanding of God. There are maps, a time chart, topical photographs and suggestions for further study.

Guide to Jeremiah (Isg 30)

Religion & Spirituality

SPCK.

Robert Boyle ranks with Newton and Einstein as one of the world’s most important scientists. Aristocrat and natural philosopher, he was a remarkably wide-ranging and penetrating thinker—pioneering the modern experimental method, championing a novel mechanical view of nature, and reflecting deeply on philosophical and theological issues related to science. But, as Michael Hunter shows, Boyle was also a complex and contradictory personality, fascinated by alchemy and magic and privately plagued with doubts about faith and conscience, which troubled the rational vision he heralded.This extraordinary work is the first biography of Boyle in a generation, and the culminating achievement of a world-renowned expert on the scientist. Deftly navigating Boyle’s voluminous published works as well as his personal letters and papers, Hunter’s complete and intimate account gives us the man rather than myth, the troubled introvert as well as the public campaigner. Lively, perceptive, and full of original insights, this is the definitive account of a remarkable man and the changing world in which he lived.

Boyle: Between God and Science

Professionals & Academics

Yale University Press

Robert Boyle ranks with Newton and Einstein as one of the world’s most important scientists. Aristocrat and natural philosopher, he was a remarkably wide-ranging and penetrating thinker—pioneering the modern experimental method, championing a novel mechanical view of nature, and reflecting deeply on philosophical and theological issues related to science. But, as Michael Hunter shows, Boyle was also a complex and contradictory personality, fascinated by alchemy and magic and privately plagued with doubts about faith and conscience, which troubled the rational vision he heralded. 
This extraordinary work is the first biography of Boyle in a generation, and the culminating achievement of a world-renowned expert on the scientist. Deftly navigating Boyle’s voluminous published works as well as his personal letters and papers, Hunter’s complete and intimate account gives us the man rather than myth, the troubled introvert as well as the public campaigner. Lively, perceptive, and full of original insights, this is the definitive account of a remarkable man and the changing world in which he lived.

The Decline of Magic: Britain in the Enlightenment

A new history which overturns the received wisdom that science displaced magic in Enlightenment Britain In early modern Britain, belief in prophecies, omens, ghosts, apparitions and fairies was commonplace. Among both educated and ordinary people the absolute existence of a spiritual world was taken for granted. Yet in the eighteenth century such certainties were swept away. Credit for this great change is usually given to science – and in particular to the scientists of the Royal Society. But is this justified? Michael Hunter argues that those pioneering the change in attitude were not scientists but freethinkers. While some scientists defended the reality of supernatural phenomena, these sceptical humanists drew on ancient authors to mount a critique both of orthodox religion and, by extension, of magic and other forms of superstition. Even if the religious heterodoxy of such men tarnished their reputation and postponed the general acceptance of anti-magical views, slowly change did come about. When it did, this owed less to the testing of magic than to the growth of confidence in a stable world in which magic no longer had a place.

History

Europe

A new history that overturns the received wisdom that science displaced magic in Enlightenment Britain—named a Best Book of 2020 by the Financial Times\nIn early modern Britain, belief in prophecies, omens, ghosts, apparitions and fairies was commonplace. Among both educated and ordinary people the absolute existence of a spiritual world was taken for granted. Yet in the eighteenth century such certainties were swept away. Credit for this great change is usually given to science – and in particular to the scientists of the Royal Society. But is this justified?\nMichael Hunter argues that those pioneering the change in attitude were not scientists but freethinkers. While some scientists defended the reality of supernatural phenomena, these sceptical humanists drew on ancient authors to mount a critique both of orthodox religion and, by extension, of magic and other forms of superstition. Even if the religious heterodoxy of such men tarnished their reputation and postponed the general acceptance of anti-magical views, slowly change did come about. When it did, this owed less to the testing of magic than to the growth of confidence in a stable world in which magic no longer had a place.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hunter, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hunter, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hunter, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

London's Leonardo: The Life and Work of Robert Hooke

Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice

Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice

The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition

The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition

Guide to Jeremiah (Isg 30)

Boyle: Between God and Science

Boyle: Between God and Science

The Decline of Magic: Britain in the Enlightenment

The Decline of Magic: Britain in the Enlightenment