Horizons

Author James Poskett
Narrator Sid Sagar
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 15 hours and 22 minutes
Format Audio
Genre African history, Asian history, General and world history, Globalization, History, History of engineering and technology, History of ideas, History of mathematics, History of science, History of the Americas, Middle Eastern history, Popular science.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A radical retelling of the history of science that challenges the Eurocentric narrative.

We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But this is wrong. Science is not, and has never been, a uniquely European endeavour.

Copernicus relied on mathematical techniques borrowed from Arabic and Persian texts. When Newton set out the laws of motion, he relied on astronomical observations made in Asia and Africa. When Darwin was writing On the Origin of Species, he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopaedia. And when Einstein was studying quantum mechanics, he was inspired by the Bengali physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose. Horizons pushes beyond Europe, exploring the ways in which scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific fit into the history of science, and arguing that it is best understood as a story of global cultural exchange.

Challenging both the existing narrative and our perceptions of revered individuals, above all this is a celebration of the work of scientists neglected by history. Among many others, we meet Graman Kwasi, the seventeenth-century African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria, Hantaro Nagaoka, the nineteenth-century Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom, and Zhao Zhongyao, the twentieth-century Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter (but whose American colleague received the Nobel prize).

Scientists today are quick to recognise the international nature of their work. In this ambitious and revisionist history, James Poskett reveals that this tradition goes back much further than we think.

© James Poskett 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

Superb . . . Poskett rightly highlights the shamefully overlooked contributions of Indian, Chinese and Japanese scientists
Sunday Times
A fundamental retelling of the story of science . . . Poskett deftly blends the achievements of little-known figures into the wider history of science . . . brims with clarity
Financial Times
An honest conversation about the history of science is therefore not just of moral importance – it is part of what makes discovery possible
New Statesman
I’ve been really impressed by Horizons: A Global History of Science by James Poskett. The book is exactly what it says on the cover: it’s a way of looking at the world of science and the development of technology from a genuinely global perspective. The narrative starts with the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan [on the site of modern-day Mexico City] and the engineering marvels that were present there, built long before the Spanish turned up during their conquest in the early modern era. Poskett also discusses Arab science, Chinese science and the story of science in the west, which is better known. So it’s a truly global and really well-written and engaging account
BBC History Magazine, Books of the Year 2022
A lively story of global collaboration in the study of nature from 1500 to the present day . . . rich and lucid
Literary Review
European scientists for centuries served the political goals of empire building, which was based on slave trading, military power, oppression and violence . . . Poskett hopes for a future where the historic truth about how scientific progress has been made is universally accepted, where all cultures are valued, and where global scientific collaboration unleashes the creativity to solve problems such as climate change
Irish Times
Horizons shows that the story of science has always been a planetary one: a non-linear process of cross-fertilisation, competition, cooperation and conflict . . . What makes the book so engrossing is that Poskett’s grasp of historical contexts is as firm as his scientific knowledge
Tortoise
Generation after generation, people in western countries have been educated to believe that the history of modern science began primarily in the 17th century in western Europe. In a book of breathtaking range and high quality, Poskett dismantles that narrow version of events and produces a genuinely global history
Financial Times
This treasure trove of a book puts the case persuasively and compellingly that modern science did not develop solely in Europe. Hugely important
Jim Al-Khalili, author of Paradox
Brilliant . . . In this revolutionary and revelatory book, James Poskett not only gives us a truly worldwide history of science, but explains how international connections have stimulated scientific advances through time
Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors
Science’s internationalism is well recognized. But scientists tend to regard it as a recent phenomenon that arose from the ‘big science’ of the twentieth century, rather than one with a history of more than 500 years going back to the Islamic science that inspired astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, and beyond, observes historian James Poskett. His revisionary “global history” boldly rebuts this
Nature
Poskett’s book is invaluable, an important and timely reminder that the world we live in has never been small or unknown, but that sharing knowledge, as well as credit, and working together, is the key to a better future
History Hit
From palatial Aztec botanic gardens to Qing Dynasty evolutionary theories, Horizons upends traditional accounts of the history of science, showing how curiosity and intellectual exploration was, and is, a global phenomenon
Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred
Remarkable. Challenges almost everything we know about science in the West
Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in 12 Maps
This perspective-shattering book challenges our Eurocentric narrative by spotlighting the work of historically neglected scientists
The Bookseller, 'Editor's Choice'
A useful corrective that brings us closer to a more accurate history of Western science – one which recognises Europe, not as exceptional, but as learning from the world
Angela Saini, author of Superior
The righting of the historical record makes Horizons a deeply satisfying read. We learn about a fascinating group of people engaged in scientific inquiry all over the world. Even more satisfyingly, Horizons demonstrates that the most famous scientists – Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein among them – couldn’t have made their discoveries without the help of their global contacts
Valerie Hansen, author of The Year 1000
A provocative examination of major contributions to science made outside Europe and the USA, from ancient to modern times, explained in relation to global historical events. I particularly enjoyed the stories of individuals whose work tends to be omitted from standard histories of science
Ian Stewart, author of Significant Figures
A wonderful, timely reminder that scientific advancement is, and has always been, a global endeavour
Patrick Roberts, author of Jungle
This is the kind of history we need: it opens our eyes to the ways in which what we know today has been uncovered thanks to a worldwide team effort
Michael Scott, author of Ancient Worlds
An important milestone
British Journal for the History of Science, on Materials of the Mind
The freshest history of the strangest science
Alison Bashford, author of Global Population, on Materials of the Mind
Ambitious, riveting, Poskett tracks the global in so many senses . . . vital reading on some of the most urgent concerns facing the world history of science
Sujit Sivasundaram, University of Cambridge, on Materials of the Mind
Terrific . . . [Makes] a substantial contribution to understanding the universalizing properties of science and technology in history
Janet Browne, Harvard University, on Materials of the Mind
Horizons forces me to think outside my Eurocentric box and puts science at the centre of world history
New Statesman, Books of the Year 2022

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