Reviewed by:

• Translating Nature: Cross-Cultural Histories of Early Modern Science ed. by Jaime Marroquin Arredondo and Ralph Bauer
• Paula Devos (bio)

Translating Nature brings together the wide-ranging research of a cosmopolitan group of scholars from various fields with the overarching aim of recognizing Indigenous, non-Western sources of and approaches to the study of nature that were appropriated and translated to a European audience as an important part of the new science in an age of globalization. The authors purport to examine the process of transculturation, whereby the knowledge and mores of one group are made comprehensible to another. In so doing, they propose a new model for the history of science as an alternative or complement to the traditional notion of discovery. Recognizing the positivist and Eurocentric connotations of the idea and trope of "discovery" within the history of science, authors in the volume offer the concept of translation as a more accurate and inclusive mode of understanding the ways in which Western and non-Western, European and Indigenous peoples came to make sense of one another and to make use of their knowledge systems. In this way, the contributors to the volume carefully grapple with the meaning of a number of terms that, when placed in historical and imperial contexts, offer important clues to the understanding of nature in the past. These include not only the terms translation and discovery but also history and geography as but a few examples of the careful [End Page 290] intellectual history that the different authors engage and the ways they seek to problematize and decenter meanings taken to be self-evident and neutral. The authors also seek to include the Iberian experience and privilege it in certain ways over that of Northern Europe, while at the same time incorporating it into the larger context of early modern European global expansion. Contributions in the volume make useful comparisons with the French, Dutch, and English contexts and the ways in which intellectuals in these places sought to translate and make sense of Iberian contributions as well.

In this way, the volume is very successful. The contributions offer an unusually high level of coordination and work well in conjunction with one another, and the introduction and conclusion to the volume skillfully weave together the varied contributions within the overall scope of the volume's focus on translation, discovery, and transculturation. Each author, further, takes on the idea of translation, examines and problematizes it, and places it within the context and research questions of that particular study. The essays are uniformly well-written and clear, careful studies exhibiting a wealth of primary source evidence in supporting in-depth research into Western intellectual genealogies from ancient Rome and Greece through medieval scholasticism, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Many of them also make interesting connections through time and space, linking climate theory with questionnaires, medieval alchemical thought with early modern herbals, and Nahua cosmologies with English zoology. The authors also do important work in placing their findings within larger historiographical and historical themes, including the "gap narrative," the "Great Divide," the Black and White Legends of Iberian colonization, and the emergence of mechanism, empiricism, and corpuscular matter theory. Readers of this volume will learn a lot and understand the significance of its findings.

In this way, the volume makes a significant contribution to the literature in destabilizing traditional narratives and understanding of the advent of modern science. However, there is still work to be done. In the first place, despite its best intentions, the volume includes a number of contributions that still inherently accept and repeat the traditional narrative, particularly in the presentation of the idea of Baconian science as representing a new empiricism characterizing the new science. Historians of science are still attributing to Bacon and to empiricism a decisive role in the Scientific [End Page 291] Revolution, as if earlier philosophers and practitioners failed to see the study of nature as useful, and as if empirical observation of natural phenomena held no sway in ancient and medieval natural philosophy. These...

审核人：

• 翻译自然：早期现代科学的跨文化历史ed。Jaime Marroquin Arredondo和Ralph Bauer
• 宝拉·德沃斯（生物）

翻译自然汇集了来自各个领域的国际化学者群体的广泛研究，其总体目标是认识到自然资源的本土，非西方来源和研究方法，并将其适当地翻译给欧洲读者并作为欧洲文化的重要组成部分全球化时代的新科学。作者声称要研究移植的过程，从而使一组人的知识和更多的东西对另一组人来说是可理解的。通过这样做，他们为科学史提出了一种新的模型，作为对传统发现概念的替代或补充。认识到科学史中“发现”的思想和说法的实证主义和欧洲中心主义的涵义，本书的作者将翻译的概念作为一种更准确，更具包容性的方式来理解西方和非西方，欧洲和土著人民如何相互理解并利用他们的知识体系。这样，本书的撰稿人就认真地处理了许多术语的含义，这些术语在历史和帝国的语境下，为过去对自然的理解提供了重要的线索。这些不仅包括条款 提供过去了解自然的重要线索。这些不仅包括条款 提供过去了解自然的重要线索。这些不仅包括条款翻译和发现，还有历史和地理，仅是一些不同作者从事的精心研究的[End Page 290]知识史的例子，以及他们试图质疑和贬低被视为不言而喻和中立的含义的方式。作者还试图将伊比利亚的经验包括在内，并以某些方式优先于北欧，并同时将其纳入早期的现代欧洲全球扩张的大环境中。该书的贡献与法国，荷兰和英国的语境以及这些地方的知识分子寻求翻译和理解伊比利亚贡献的方式进行了有益的比较。

这样，音量非常成功。这些文章提供了异常高的协调水平，并且可以很好地相互配合，并且本书的引言和结语巧妙地将本书的重点放在翻译，发现和跨文化的整个范围内，将各种文章编织在一起。此外，每位作者都接受了翻译的概念，对其进行了审查并提出了问题，并将其置于该特定研究的背景和研究问题之内。文章统一，清晰，细致地研究，展示了大量原始证据，可支持通过中世纪的学者制度，文艺复兴和启蒙运动对古罗马和希腊的西方知识谱系进行深入研究。他们中的许多人还通过时空建立了有趣的联系，将气候理论与问卷联系起来，将中世纪的炼金术思想与早期的现代草药联系在一起，并将纳瓦宇宙学与英语动物学联系起来。作者还做出了重要的工作，将他们的发现归入更大的史学和历史主题中，包括“空白叙述”，“大鸿沟”，伊比利亚殖民地黑人和白人传说以及机制，经验主义和小体物质的出现。理论。本书的读者将学到很多东西，并了解其发现的意义。作者还做出了重要的工作，将他们的发现归入更大的史学和历史主题中，包括“空白叙述”，“大鸿沟”，伊比利亚殖民地黑人和白人传说以及机制，经验主义和小体物质的出现。理论。本书的读者将学到很多东西，并了解其发现的意义。作者还做出了重要的工作，将他们的发现归入更大的史学和历史主题中，包括“空白叙述”，“大鸿沟”，伊比利亚殖民地黑人和白人传说以及机制，经验主义和小体物质的出现。理论。本书的读者将学到很多东西，并了解其发现的意义。

通过这种方式，本书为破坏传统叙事和理解现代科学的发展做出了重大贡献。但是，仍然有工作要做。首先，尽管有最好的意图，但本书仍包含许多仍在本质上接受和重复传统叙事的著作，特别是在培根科学的思想表示中，代表了代表新科学的新经验主义。科学史学家仍将培根和经验主义归因于科学界的决定性作用。[完第291页]革命，好像早期的哲学家和实践者未能将对自然的研究视为有用，似乎对自然现象的实证观察在古代和中世纪的自然哲学中都没有动摇。这些...