Erasmus Darwin: Sex, Science, and Serendipity - Hardcover

Patricia Fara lectures in the history of science at Cambridge University, where she is the Senior Tutor of Clare College. A specialist in Enlightenment England, her main passion is explaining to non-academic audiences why the history of science is so fascinating and so important. Her most recent book, Science: A Four Thousand Year History (2009), won the Dingle prize awarded by the British Society for the History of Science. Her other successful publications include Newton: The Making of Genius (2002), Sex, Botany and Empire (2003) and Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (2004). An experienced public lecturer, she appears regularly in TV documentaries and radio programmes such as In our Time and Start the Week. She also contributes articles and reviews to many journals, including History Today, BBC History, New Scientist, Prospect, Nature, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Review from previous edition: "Engagingly written, appealingly presented and historically insightful...the judges agreed that in its admirably broad scope, its historical and historiographical depth and its engaging re-presentation of the best of recent scholarship, the 2011 Dingle Prize
should be awarded to Patricia Fara for Science: A Four Thousand Year History."

--Dingle Prize Judges

Review from previous edition: "Fara's book could not be more wide-ranging, beginning [with] the quest to take the story of science as far back as she possibly can, and ending bang up to date. The content is ambitious, judiciously and fairly handled...The narrative moves forward in an engaging
way, while the enthusiasm and opinions of the author are never far from the surface. It is a book to provoke thought and argument. An impressive achievement."

--Jim Bennett, BBC History Magazine

"For a very long time, reputable historians of science have lacked the desire, the knowledge, or the nerve to undertake a book like this -- an attempt to survey the development of science from Antiquity to the present, notably including non-European materials. Patricia Fara has succeeded:
Science is an elegant and compact creative synthesis of the piecemeal researches of generations of academic historians. It deserves the widest possible readership."

--Steven Shapin, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard, and author of The Scientific Revolution

"Dismantling popular myths, taking a truly global view and dispensing with false idols, Fara's highly readable survey of science's histories is a breath of fresh air. She unerringly pinpoints the defining moods of each age, treating the past with respect and the present with discernment. This
wonderfully literate book tells a story that is far, far more interesting than the tidy fictions of hindsight."

--Philip Ball, Consultant Editor of Nature

"Patricia Fara has written a fascinating account."

--John Gribbin, Literary Review

"Wide-ranging and provocative... Romps through history at a terrific rate."

--The Economist 11/06/2009

"Epic history of science"

--Jo Marchant, New Scientist

"An impressive and commendable effort to square the circle, to tell science's history, from the beginning."

--Martin D. Gordin, Science

"An engaging book...Fara is to be commended for stepping back - way back - to assess the history of science in its entirety."

--Robert J Malone, excutive director of the History of Science Society