Empires of Knowledge

Empires of Knowledge charts the emergence of different kinds of scientific networks - local and long-distance, informal and institutional, religious and secular - between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries as one of the important phenomena of the early modern world. It seeks to answer what role these networks played in making knowledge, how information traveled, how was...

Empires of Knowledge charts the emergence of different kinds of scientific networks - local and long-distance, informal and institutional, religious and secular - between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries as one of the important phenomena of the early modern world. It seeks to answer what role these networks played in making knowledge, how information traveled, how was it transformed by travel, and who were the brokers of this world?

Paula Findlen is Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History at Stanford University, USA. Her research focuses on science and culture in early modern Italy. She is the 2016 recipient of the Premio Galileo. Recent publications include Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500-1800.