"William Shakespeare lived at a remarkable time--a period we now recognize as the first phase of the Scientific Revolution. New ideas were transforming Western thought, the medieval was giving way to the modern, and the work of a few key figures hinted at the brave new world to come: The methodical and rational Galileo, the skeptical Montaigne, and--as Falk convincingly argues--Shakespeare, who observed human nature just as intently as the astronomers...

"Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Winners of the 2005 Erasmus Prize, Praemium Erasmianum Foundation" Steven Shapin is the Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. Simon Schaffer is professor of history of science at the University of Cambridge. Leviathan and the Air-Pump examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author...