Emilie du Châtelet was one such pioneering woman. She made use of her aristocratic background and connections with the upper echelons of society to involve herself in the philosophical debates of her day – and she used her sharp wit and mathematical aptitude to test the newest ideas in physics and convince her compatriots that Newton’s theory of gravity was right.

Yet du Châtelet was not alone. Meet other daring women of the Enlightenment:

Marie Paulze Lavoisier (1758-1836)

Caroline Herschel (1750-1848)

Mary Somerville (1780-1872)

Anne Conway (1631-79)

Margaret Cavendish (1623-73)

Sophie Germain (1776-1831)

Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717)

Fifty years ago, the influential historian Herbert Butterfield had no doubts
about the birth of modern science. For him, the Scientific Revolution of the
16th and 17th centuries “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity”.
But are changes that took place over two centuries really revolutionary? Does it
make sense to use the word “scientific” for a range of activities, such as
Newton’s alchemical experiments, that bear little resemblance to modern science?
And given the current interest in genes and evolution, how are we to accommodate
the biological sciences within historical narratives that trumpet the rise of
physics? Recently reprinted, the 17 academic papers in Renaissance and
Revolution explain why historians of science want to revolutionise how we
think about the “Revolution”.

But abolishing the Scientific Revolution means rethinking the Renaissance of
the 14th to the 16th centuries. Beautifully written and illustrated, Lisa
Jardine’s Worldly Goods(Papermac, £12, ISBN 0333674464), provides
an exciting and novel interpretation. Reflecting historians’ current
preoccupation with the growth of our modern consumer society, Jardine
concentrates on money, commerce and things. By rejecting the conventional focus
on an artistic and literary rebirth of classical values, she carves out a new
place in cultural history for early science. She explains how globes and
scientific instruments played vital roles in developing the trade routes that
enabled raw materials and finished goods to travel round the world. Mingling
Copernicus and Regiomontanus with Holbein and Giorgione, her narrative brings to
life the international community of cartographers, instrument-makers and
publishers who helped to produce and market beautiful Renaissance artefacts.

For another approach to the Renaissance, try Nancy Siraisi’s The Clock
and the Mirror (Princeton University, ÂŁ37.50/$49.50, ISBN
0691011893). Cardano, who was an astrologer and mathematician, as well as a
medical practitioner, included blood letting, dream analysis and magic charms in
his therapeutic repertoire. Siraisi abandons the birth-to-death approach of
conventional biographies. Instead, she uses Cardano as a mirror to reflect the
philosophies and physicians of his complex intellectual world—the
historical equivalent of Cardano’s own recommendation that “the studious man”
should continually consult a mirror to monitor his physical degeneration.

Perhaps historians have been heeding Cardano’s advice, since they are now
examining bodies with a keen intellectual interest that parallels the physical
fashion for self-modification with tattoos, body-piercing or cosmetic surgery.
But this current obsession is by no means new, as is amply demonstrated by the
contributors to Dominic Montserrat’s Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings
(Routledge, ÂŁ45, ISBN 0415135842). Greeks, Egyptians and the early
Christian martyrs recognised that altering your body is an ideological statement
that you want to change society.

Considering Egyptian mummies as cyborgs can be heavy going. However, even if
your French is up to scratch, you may well feel overwhelmed by the barrage of
facts in David Cosandey’s Le Secret de l’Occident (Arléa, F175,
ISBN 2869593368). His “Secret of the West” is mereupory—a concept
whose name is so hard to pronounce that it’s unlikely to catch on. Cosandey
contends that science has flourished for the past millennium in Europe because
the continent’s uniquely high ratio of coastline to land area encouraged
economic prosperity and stability. This zany attempt at a triumphalist Plato to
NATO account provides a salutary reminder that finding new ways of writing
scientific history is not always such a good idea.