Western Civilization.p

(Jacob Rumans) #1

CHAPTER OUTLINE


I. Introduction

II. Medieval Science and the Scientific Revolution
A. The Origins of Modern Scientific Thought:
Physics from Copernicus to Newton
B. Medicine: From Galen to Harvey

III. The Expansion of the Northern Powers: France,
England, and the Netherlands

IV. The Golden Age in the Netherlands

V. The Reorganization of War and Government:
France under Louis XIV
A. French Absolutism: A Model for Reform
B. The Emergence of England as a World Power

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CHAPTER 16


PREINDUSTRIAL EUROPE: SCIENCE,


THE ECONOMY, AND POLITICAL


REORGANIZATION


T


he political troubles of the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries did not preclude
extraordinary developments in other areas.
The scientific revolution changed the way
Europeans thought about the physical universe.
England, France, and above all the Netherlands chal-
lenged the Iberian powers and created substantial em-
pires of their own. In the process they greatly expanded
Europe’s presence in world markets and accumulated
capital in unprecedented amounts. The Netherlands
emerged, however briefly, as a major power and a
center of high culture. Eventually, states that had been
nearly shattered by a century of war and revolution
began to reconstruct themselves, reforming their gov-
ernmental institutions, curbing the power of local elites,
and gaining control over the armies and navies whose
independence had threatened to engulf them. The
model for many of these changes was the France of
Louis XIV, but the rise of England as an economic and
naval power would have an even greater influence on
the age to come.




Medieval Science and the

Scientific Revolution

The scientific revolution of the late sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries has no parallel among modern
intellectual movements. Its impact was comparable to
that made by the thinkers of ancient Greece because,
like them, it changed not only ideas but also the
process by which ideas are formulated. The Renais-
sance and the Reformation, for all their importance,
were rooted in traditional patterns of thought. They
could be understood without reordering the concepts
that had permeated Western thinking for more than
two thousand years. The development of modern sci-
ence, though in some ways an outgrowth of these

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