The writings and example of Isaac Newton transformed understandings of the practice and meaning of the sciences across Europe in the century or so following the publication of the Principia in 1687. The essays in these volumes consider the impact of Newton's ideas from three distinct but interlocking perspectives: their reception in particular geographical areas and language communities; their importance for particular fields of intellectual and practical endeavour, and their influence on other thinkers who, in turn, shaped Newton's intellectual legacy. They provide, for the first time, a picture of the fate of Newton's work across mainland Europe, giving an account of Newton's influence in the arts and social sciences, as well as in mathematics or physics.
Helmut Pulte is Professor of Philosophy at Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany.
Elinor Shaffer, FBA, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, has published on Romantic and Victorian literature, is author of 'Kubla Khan' and The Fall of Jerusalem: The Mythological School of Biblical Criticism and Secular Literature, edited the annual journal Comparative Criticism, and most recently has contributed to Samuel Butler: Victorian Against the Grain.
Scott Mandelbrote is Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge and Fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford, UK.