Eamon, William C. (Author)
Edgar Zilsel's famous thesis, which argues that modern experimental science was born from the union of artisans and intellectuals in the 16th century, received little support when Zilsel proposed it in the 1940s. In recent years, however, with the turn toward social and cultural history of science, the “Zilsel Thesis” has undergone something of a revival as historians rethink the relevance of artisanal knowledge for the history of early modern science. This essay looks at the Zilsel Thesis in a global setting – specifically a colonial Iberian setting – and argues for its relevance in framing natural history, medicine, and the impact of science on everyday life. Using the examples of corn, quina, and cochineal, this essay argues that the agronomic, chemical, and entomological knowledge accumulated over generations of practice by indigenous practitioners was in fact artisanal knowledge that was passed on to European intellectuals in “global trading zones” to become part of the Western scientific patrimony.
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Thesis
Cagle, Hubert Glenn, III;
(2011)
Dead Reckonings: Disease and the Natural Sciences in Portuguese Asia and the Atlantic, 1450--1650
(/isis/citation/CBB001567296/)
Thesis
Deirdre Moore;
(2021)
The Heart of Red: Cochineal in Colonial Mexico and India
(/isis/citation/CBB209904775/)
Article
Surekha Davies;
(2014)
Science, New Worlds, and the Classical Tradition: An Introduction
(/isis/citation/CBB682086951/)
Chapter
Tortorici, Zeb;
Few, Martha;
(2013)
Writing Animal Histories
(/isis/citation/CBB001422672/)
Chapter
Lesley B. Cormack;
(2017)
Handwork and Brainwork: Beyond the Zilsel Thesis
(/isis/citation/CBB086998890/)
Article
Henrique Leitão;
Antonio Sánchez;
(2017)
Zilsel’s Thesis, Maritime Culture, and Iberian Science in Early Modern Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB165733981/)
Chapter
Antonio Sánchez;
(2021)
Cosmografia, náutica e conhecimento prático: espaços, práticas e artefactos
(/isis/citation/CBB385336065/)
Article
Antonio Sánchez;
(2018)
Charts for an Empire. a Global Trading Zone in Early Modern Portuguese Nautical Cartography
(/isis/citation/CBB329533922/)
Multimedia Object
Lance C. Thurner;
Bigelow, Allison Margaret;
(2020)
Allison Bigelow, “Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World” (UNC Press 2020)
(/isis/citation/CBB595307728/)
Book
Matthew James Crawford;
Joseph M. Gabriel;
(2019)
Drugs on the Page: Pharmacopoeias and Healing Knowledge in the Early Modern Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB528992656/)
Chapter
Baldini, Ugo;
(2008)
The Jesuit College in Macao as a Meeting Point of the European, Chinese and Japanese Mathematical Traditions. Some Remarks on the Present State of Research, Mainly Concerning Sources (16th--17th Centuries)
(/isis/citation/CBB000950480/)
Book
Higgs, Catherine;
(2012)
Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa
(/isis/citation/CBB001421818/)
Article
Valle, Ivonne del;
(2013)
From José de Acosta to the Enlightenment: Barbarians, Climate Change, and (Colonial) Technology as the End of History
(/isis/citation/CBB001201895/)
Article
Timothy Bowers Vasko;
(2019)
‘That They Will Be Capable of Governing Themselves’: Knowledge of Amerindian Difference and Early Modern Arts of Governance in the Spanish Colonial Antilles
(/isis/citation/CBB498534270/)
Book
Robins, Nicholas A.;
(2011)
Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes
(/isis/citation/CBB001212498/)
Article
Santiago Giménez-Roldán;
John C. Steele;
Valerie S. Palmer;
Peter S. Spencer;
(2021)
Lytico-bodig in Guam: Historical links between diet and illness during and after Spanish colonization
(/isis/citation/CBB192108616/)
Article
Bradley Skopyk;
(2017)
Rivers of God, Rivers of Empire: Climate Extremes, Environmental Transformation and Agroecology in Colonial Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB158480009/)
Book
Few, Martha;
Tortorici, Zeb;
(2013)
Centering Animals in Latin American History
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Article
Ramos, Gabriela;
(2013)
Indian Hospitals and Government in the Colonial Andes
(/isis/citation/CBB001252685/)
Article
Araral, Eduardo;
(2013)
What Makes Socio-Ecological Systems Robust? An Institutional Analysis of the 2,000 Year-Old Ifugao Society
(/isis/citation/CBB001421937/)
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