In the history of science, much ink has been spilled on the effects of the Enlightenment on the development of Western culture. The seventeenth century in Europe was an era of rapid discovery, expansion, and intrigue. We are often regaled with stories of the forefathers of modern science, from the all-to-easily simplistic persecution narrative of Galileo to the mythological account of Newton’s ‘Buddha-meets-Garden of Eden’ moment of intellectual enlightenment under an apple tree. The history of science is saturated with books about these “great men” and their contributions to the field of modern scientific discourse. In American curricula, we most often focus on the scientific contributions that developed within the British Isles, specifically the role of the Royal Society. Continuing in this tradition is author Edward Dolnick’s 2011 work, The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World. As the former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, Dolnick clearly knows a thing or two about the history of science. Yet, in several important aspects, this work is glaringly constrained and limited in its impact.

On the outset, I must acknowledge that Dolnick is incredibly knowledgeable about the history of the Royal Society and the tempestuous personalities that inhabited the group. The main thrust of the book is to tell the story of these Enlightenment “lone geniuses,” as Dolnick likes to constantly emphasize. The book truly begins to shine in its third, and final, section, which details Newton and Leibniz’s longstanding feud. Dolnick is honest regarding the tempestuous temperaments of both Newton and Leibniz, who constantly berated and scorned one another in fierce competition for recognition and honor. In the closing of this book, Dolnick does a great job emphasizing that these men are deeply flawed individuals, despite their scientific brilliance. Furthermore, Dolnick is particularly adept in the fields of mathematics and physics, and takes the bulk of the book to explain how certain developments in these fields occurred within the work of Newton and Leibniz, with Newton’s Principia serving as the teleological end point of the book. Truly, Dolnick is passionate about mathematics and physics, and explains basic concepts and their development with surprising clarity and lucidity. The chapters are also incredibly short, most adding up to somewhere between 5-10 pages each, which makes this a relatively quick read. As such, for someone interested in the history of physics, this book could serve as a beneficial starting point. These glaring spots within the work, however, do little to quell its immense issues.

First of all, in terms of formatting, the book unfortunately tends to meander and skip dramatically in regards to chronology and theme. The book starts by giving a shallow account of 17th century England under Charles II, replete with plague, teeming with religious zeal and hysteric apocalypticism, and engulfed in flames. We, as readers, are then taken back to ancient Greece in 300 A.D., as Dolnick extolls Euclid's discoveries in geometry. We are then taken back to the creation of the Royal Society in England for a brief moment before being whisked away to the early 1500s, where we meet Kepler and Galileo. We are then thrown back into ancient Greece again as Dolnick describes how Pythagoras developed his theory through geometry, rather than with mathematics. Finally, the book then settles firmly into the world of Newton and how his discoveries shaped the scientific discourse of early physics and mathematics, often in contention with other thinkers and scientists such as Leibniz. While these shifts in chronology are most likely purposeful to highlight the ways in which Newton utilized the knowledge and theories of those who came before him, the concurrent whiplash from taking such a disjointed trip through history can leave the reader disoriented and unsure of how these theories and events connect.

Accordingly, in terms of content, Dolnick’s first few chapters start on shaky ground. The picture of the 17th century that he paints is shaded with the stereotypical array of plague, excrement, city-wide fires, and religious intolerance. While there is a kernel of truth in these descriptions, historians of the Stuart period know that the world of 17th century England was also a much more complex and multidimensional place. Dolnick’s depiction is rather myopic and single-minded, as he attempts to set an inherent dichotomy between the intolerant culture and the “great geniuses” that arose from it.  His treatment of religion especially leaves much to be desired, particularly in early chapters, where he takes Jonathan Edwards’ infamous fire-and-brimstone sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to be the sole defining religious perspective of the entire era, (despite the fact that this text is an example of New England Puritanism, rather than Anglican doctrines.) Religion, in Dolnick’s view, consists entirely of Puritanical, yet somehow quasi-Catholic views of God, while the true religious landscape of 17th century England (let alone throughout the rest of Europe) was much more rich and complex.

In a similar vein, many of Dolnick’s arguments rehash the same old, hackneyed Enlightenment talking points regarding religion and science, pitting science against religion as incompatible forces that must be in conflict. While Dolnick does well to note that these men's scientific pursuits followed from their religious motivations, it also comes across that their religious commitments hindered their scientific progress. While Dolnick does admit toward the end of the book that Newton and Leibniz were “talking past one another” in regards to their theological quandaries, Dolnick tends to portray their religious commitments as little more than annoying quirks that only added fuel to their bitterest quarrells This is not even to mention the ways in which the theological and scientific contribution of the Middle Ages are minimized, while the influence of Arabic scientific contributions to Western science are utterly ignored (according to Dolnick, “the Greeks had been brilliant mathematicians, but for centuries afterward, that was the end of the story” (42)).

Finally, my largest contention with this book is the “lone genius” theory that Dolnick constantly and unabashedly perpetuates. In his estimation, Kepler, Newton, Galileo, and the like were all men of exceptional intellect and mental prowess, nearly god-like in their abilities which remain unattainable by the large majority of the population. By emphasizing the gap between the “common person” and these intellectual figures, Dolnick sets these men on pedestals, often sounding more like a cheerleader and fanboy rather than a respectable historian. This perpetuates a “great man” thesis of history as opposed to the complex and multilayered series of events that we dub “the Scientific Revolution.” While there should absolutely be a place for highlighting human excellence and intelligence in the historical narrative, it should not come at the expense of even acknowledging a “history from below” approach.  Furthermore, this work minimizes the ways in which scientific discourse was incredibly collaborative as well as combative. While Dolnick admits that “the story of early science would have more to do with collaboration than with solitary contemplation” (5), the rest of the book seems to work against this very notion.

In the end, The Clockwork Universe, while a great investigation into the difficulty of mapping the universe before the invention of calculus, ultimately serves as a Eurocentric, great man theory of the history of science that emphasizes the “lone geniuses” of Western science rather than grappling with the complex, messy, interconnected web of scientific modes of communication that thrived in the 17th century, choosing instead to focus on the petty squabbles of tempestuous, albeit intelligent, Western European men. Furthermore, while it may hold the interest of those eager to learn about the history of mathematics and physics, most others will find the constant deviations and tangents to be tedious and monotonous. For those who have no experience with the history of physics and mathematics, this book could serve as a useful introductory text. For those who wish to dig deeper into the subject (or other branches of science in this era), you could probably skip this altogether (or at least skim to find particular chapters of interest).