{"title":"Simon Schaffer","description":"\u003cp\u003eSimon Schaffer's works explore the intricate relationship between science, history, and society, delving into how knowledge is constructed and its impact on the modern world. His writing often blends rigorous historical research with insightful analysis, inviting readers to reconsider familiar narratives about scientific progress.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom detailed studies like \u003cem\u003eLeviathan and the Air-Pump\u003c\/em\u003e to broader reflections on the role of expertise in society, Schaffer's books offer a thoughtful examination of the cultural and intellectual dimensions of history. They are essential reading for anyone interested in the history of science and its lasting influence.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"working-knowledge-by-simon-schaffer-9780226831794","title":"Working Knowledge","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCollects key articles by Simon Schaffer, one of the most important historians of science working today.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWorking Knowledge\u003c\/em\u003e is the first English-language collection of essays by Simon Schaffer, coauthor of \u003cem\u003eLeviathan and the Air-Pump\u003c\/em\u003e, a landmark text in the history of science. Though the latter may be his most famous book, Schaffer is also renowned for seminal articles on Isaac Newton and the cultures of popular spectacle, nineteenth-century physics and its practices of labour discipline and standardisation, the history of anthropology and collecting, and the globe-spanning cultural interactions that have shaped modern science. \u003cem\u003eWorking Knowledge\u003c\/em\u003e compiles these well-known pieces alongside newer selections, making them accessible in a single place and representing the huge scope and impact of Schaffer's oeuvre.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eReader\u003c\/em\u003e divides sixteen of Schaffer's articles across five thematic sections, which take up timely issues like the turn toward global histories of science; the intersection of science and capitalism; the interaction between bodies and machines; and the connection between science, politics, and the environment. Eight new essays by notable historians such as Adrian Johns, Lissa Roberts, and Steven Shapin bring Schaffer's pieces into discussion with current scholarship. Illustrations and brief commentaries by Schaffer and the artist Adam Lowe, a longtime collaborator, are included throughout the volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBringing together essential articles that were previously scattered across several publications, \u003cem\u003eWorking Knowledge\u003c\/em\u003e is an insightful introduction to Schaffer and his ever-relevant writing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47307382358252,"sku":"9780226831794","price":73.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/501b46794b40d5bb7c304b21950a25cb.jpg?v=1771099239"},{"product_id":"leviathan-and-the-air-pump-by-steven-shapin-9780691178165","title":"Leviathan and the Air-Pump","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLeviathan and the Air-Pump\u003c\/i\u003e examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author of the political treatise \u003ci\u003eLeviathan\u003c\/i\u003e and vehement critic of systematic experimentation in natural philosophy, and Robert Boyle, mechanical philosopher and owner of the newly invented air-pump.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe issues at stake in their disputes ranged from the physical integrity of the air-pump to the intellectual integrity of the knowledge it might yield. Both Boyle and Hobbes were looking for ways of establishing knowledge that did not decay into ad hominem attacks and political division.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBoyle proposed the experiment as a cure. He argued that facts should be manufactured by machines like the air-pump so that gentlemen could witness the experiments and produce knowledge that everyone agreed on. Hobbes, by contrast, looked for natural law and viewed experiments as the artificial, unreliable products of an exclusive guild.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe new approaches taken in \u003ci\u003eLeviathan and the Air-Pump\u003c\/i\u003e have been enormously influential on historical studies of science. Shapin and Schaffer found a moment of scientific revolution and showed how key scientific givens—facts, interpretations, experiment, truth—were fundamental to a new political order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShapin and Schaffer were also innovative in their ethnographic approach. Attempting to understand the work habits, rituals, and social structures of a remote, unfamiliar group, they argued that politics were tied up in what scientists did, rather than what they said.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSteven Shapin and Simon Schaffer use the confrontation between Hobbes and Boyle as a way of understanding what was at stake in the early history of scientific experimentation. They describe the protagonists' divergent views of natural knowledge and situate the Hobbes-Boyle disputes within contemporary debates over the role of intellectuals in public life and the problems of social order and assent in Restoration England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn a new introduction, the authors describe how science and its social context were understood when this book was first published, and how the study of the history of science has changed since then.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47463440875756,"sku":"9780691178165","price":64.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691178165-leviathan-and-the-air-pump.jpg?v=1775033042"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/simon-schaffer.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}