History of the Royal Society of London: Experiment, Civility, and Public Knowledge - Paperback

The history of the Royal Society of London is inseparable from the history of modern knowledge itself. To write about the Society is to trace the emergence of new ways of seeing, testing, debating, and circulating claims about the natural world. It is to follow the gradual construction of norms that shaped how people should behave when seeking truth, how they should disagree, and how they should present their findings to wider publics. This book explores that long trajectory through three interwoven themes: experiment, civility, and public knowledge. These are not merely abstract categories but lived practices that defined the Royal Society's identity from its founding in 1660 through its transformations across centuries.