This is a discussion of the historical development of science, technology and medicine in Western Europe and North America from the Renaissance to the present. By linking its development to the wider context of human society, the constant changing process of human perception, comprehension and manipulation of the world is revealed. Four principal ways of knowing are identified within particular periods: natural history in the 18th century; analysis following the French Revolution; experiment in the epoch of modernism; and the current presence of technoscience. John Pickstone balances the historical exposition of natural magic and natural theology with a philosophical interpretation of the Scientific Revolution and reflective comments on Foucault and Collingwood.
