This volume brings together leading thinkers who offer reflections on the place of Western civilization in the academy, at a time when there is indifference or even antipathy toward the study of the West at most institutions of higher learning. Alternative narratives—including multiculturalism, diversity, and sustainability—have come to the fore in the stead of Western civilization. The present volume is designed to explore the roots, extent, and long-term consequences of this educational ...

Now in its third edition, The Rise of Early Modern Science argues that to understand why modern science arose in the West it is essential to study not only the technical aspects of scientific thought but also the religious, legal and institutional arrangements that either opened the doors for enquiry, or restricted scientific investigations. Toby E. Huff explores how the newly invented universities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the European legal revolution, created a neutra...

Seventeenth-century Europe witnessed an extraordinary flowering of discoveries and innovations. This study, beginning with the Dutch-invented telescope of 1608, casts Galileo's discoveries into a global framework. Although the telescope was soon transmitted to China, Mughal India, and the Ottoman Empire, those civilizations did not respond as Europeans did to the new instrument. In Europe, there was an extraordinary burst of innovations in microscopy, human anatomy, optics, pneumatics, ele...