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Koestler’s Sleepwalkers was a genuine contribution to historiography. Somewhat mistitled, most of the book is actually an account of how the Copernican revolution came about.
Disputing historians who saw the Copernican shift as the victory of science over intellectual darkness, Koestler highlights the many accidents and missteps before the intellectual achievement of a heliocentric solar system. He shows that Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo had one foot in the medieval world and one foot in the modern. In its time, Sleepwalkers supplied a badly needed corrective to rationalist perspectives.
Koestler’s motivating thesis was that a contemporary renewal of science by spiritual values was badly needed. Thus, he portrays the history of the separation between faith and science, as symbolized by Galileo, as a tragedy for both. Written in the shadow of Hiroshima and beginning of the nuclear arms race between the US and USSR the position was commendable but is now somewhat passé. Few contemporary scientists would dispute the need for a spiritually informed practice.
Moreover, historiography has advanced along with atomic physics and the historical predicament. While no one has come up with a coherent interpretation of quantum phenomena, the argument is no longer, as Koestler makes it, just about wave/particle duality. Of course, fear of mutually assured destruction by superpowers no longer fuels a demand for spiritual renewal.
Thus, I do not recommend this book to anyone but Koestler devotees. It’s just too dependent on the historical circumstances that gave it birth to make it worth reading some five hundred plus pages. Those with a particular interest in early modern science will, however, probably enjoy Koestler’s distinct perspective.
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (Compass) (英語) ペーパーバック – 1990/5/1
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内容紹介
An extraordinary history of humanity's changing vision of the universe. In this masterly synthesis, Arthur Koestler cuts through the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. He shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how, in particular, the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. He also provides vivid and judicious pen-portraits of a string of great scientists and makes clear the role that political bias and unconscious prejudice played in their creativity.
著者について
Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) was an extraordinary polymath, writer, and political polemicist. His most famous works include the novels Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure; his autobiographical writings, including Spanish Testament and Scum of the Earth; and his visionary nonfiction, including The Ghost in the Machine, The Case of the Midwife Toad, and The Sleepwalkers.
Herbert Butterfield was an influencial historiographer born in 1900 in Yorkshire, England. A graduate of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, he is best known for his 1931 work The Whig Interpretation of History. He died in 1979.
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Aran Joseph Canes
A Work of the Past
2019年11月11日 -
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Donald J. Weinshank
This is an extraordinary and valuable introduction to the history of astronomy and cosmology.
2013年1月23日 -
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Ijaz Durrani
Review of the book titled" The Sleepwalkers" by IJAZ DURRANI
2015年4月18日 -
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James Talbot
History of Cosmology
2017年5月4日 -
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Stanley B. Klein
wonderfully written
2014年3月2日 -
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