Ebook: God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS; INTRODUCTION; CHAPTER 1 After the Fall of Rome: Progress in the Early Middle Ages; Ploughs, Horseshoes and Stirrups: New Technology in the Early Middle Ages; The Fall of Rome and the Rise of Islam; The Foundation of the New Roman Empire; CHAPTER 2 The Mathematical Pope; The Career of Gerbert of Aurillac; Gerbert's Knowledge of Ancient Philosophy; The Christian Vision of the Natural World and the Music of the Spheres; CHAPTER 3 The Rise of Reason; Saint Anselm and the Logical Proof that God Exists; The Doomed Lovers; The Trials of Peter Abelard.;A powerful and thrilling narrative history revealing the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilised behaviour. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In God's Philosophers, James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth was flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope.