| Book Review | The American Historical Review, .

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Book Review

Methods/Theory

Niccolò Guicciardini. Reading the Principia: The Debate on Newton's Mathematical Methods for Natural Philosophy from 1687 to 1736. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. 285. $80.00.

In the 1970s, a full dress international conference on the work of Isaac Newton held at the University of Cambridge made palpable the enormous differences that had developed in the field, and in the history of science more generally. Those assembled (including two rather transparent KGB agents posing as physicists) broke down roughly into two camps: the historians of physics and mathematics, who saw little to no value in the work being done on Newton by the other camp—let us call them historians of culture—whose research focused on Newton's alchemy, his religion, and, giving the greatest offense, the relationship of Newton, his followers, and their ideas to the unstable world in which they lived. During those three days the tensions were unpleasant and the intellectual by-product became Newton as Humpty Dumpty. His mind lay in pieces as one scholar discussed his mathematics, another his alchemy, and even (I was the offender) his ideological interests. No piece fitted back together again with any other piece. . . .

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