A01=Nasser Zakariya
Author_Nasser Zakariya
beginning
Category=PDX
Category=PDZ
composition
cosmos
energy
epics
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eq_science
genesis
genres
historical
historiography
history
human discovery
humanism
knowledge
language
method
mysticism
myths
narratives
nuclear
original story
origins
philosophy
political
politics
popular
questions
rhetoric
rhetorical
schisms
science
scientific
stories
storytelling
synthesis
unity
Product details
- ISBN 9780226476124
- Weight: 992g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 14 Nov 2017
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Popular science readers embrace epics the sweeping stories that claim to tell the history of all the universe, from the cosmological to the biological to the social. And the appeal is understandable: in writing these works, authors such as E. O. Wilson or Steven Weinberg deliberately seek to move beyond particular disciplines, to create a compelling story weaving together natural historical events, scientific endeavor, human discovery, and contemporary existential concerns. In A Final Story, Nasser Zakariya delves into the origins and ambitions of these scientific epics, from the nineteenth century to the present, to see what they reveal about the relationship between storytelling, integrated scientific knowledge, and historical method. While seeking to transcend the perspectives of their own eras, the authors of the epics and the debates surrounding them are embedded in political and social struggles of their own times, struggles to which the epics in turn respond. In attempts to narrate an approach to a final, true account, these synthesizing efforts shape and orient scientific developments old and new.
By looking closely at the composition of science epics and the related genres developed along with them, we are able to view the historical narrative of science as a form of knowledge itself, one that discloses much about the development of our understanding of and relationship to science over time.
Nasser Zakariya is assistant professor of history and rhetoric of science at the University of California, Berkeley.
