Joy Hakim, Smithsonian Books
January 2005
This is an extraordinary book. Part of a planned series of six volumes on the history of science by distinguished textbook author Joy Hakim, Aristotle Leads the Way traces the development of scientific knowledge from the ancient world through the early Renaissance. Hakim is an engaging writer, unafraid of taking a stand and unembarrassed by the book's location of science in the humanities and its forthright focus on Western culture's outsized contributions to scientific inquiry. (Though she does not stint on non-Western history, either.) I found amazing the connections Hakim made between Western philosophy and religion and their creation of the rational, inquisitive mindset that makes modern science possible - connections you will rarely find in most textbooks. For example, she rightfully lingers on the early Renaissance philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas, who revitalized the Aristotelian approach of classification and careful observation that is the modus operandi of modern science. How many American middle schoolers even know the name Aquinas, much less can explain his significance? A few caveats: the book suffers slightly from what Diane Ravitch has called the "If it's Tuesday, this must be the Hittites" phenomenon, which is perhaps unavoidable in a history that spans millennia. And Hakim is a bit broad in some of her characterizations of religion, especially the other-worldly Christianity that developed in the Medieval era, which was not so anti-intellectual as she sometimes suggests. But these are quibbles that arise from something incredibly refreshing in a textbook: a crisp and articulate point of view. Get it here, read it for yourself, and pass it on to teachers and students. You and they will be better educated for it. I sure was.