Horizons: A Global History of Science

When we think about the origins of modern science, we usually begin in Europe, praising the great minds of Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein. But this narrow Western gaze is only one part of the story. The reality was an utterly global, nonlinear pattern of cross-fertilization, competition, cooperation and outright conflict. Each rupture in history carved fresh channels for global exchange. Award-winning professor James Poskett celebrates how scientists from Africa, America, Asia, and the Pacific were integral to this very human story. We meet Graman Kwasi, the African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria; Hantaro Nagaoka, the Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom; and Zhao Zhongyao, the Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter. Horizons is a richly informative and timely reminder that scientific achievement is, and has always been, a global endeavor.