Comments on: Review of Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/02/review-of-sailing-school-navigating-science-and-skill-1550-1800/ HIST 615/635 Spring 2023 Wed, 05 Apr 2023 12:18:51 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 By: Kevin Twohig https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/02/review-of-sailing-school-navigating-science-and-skill-1550-1800/#comment-64 Wed, 05 Apr 2023 12:18:51 +0000 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/?p=609#comment-64 Hi Dominick, great review! I really enjoyed this book because it dealt with a period and topic I am far more familiar with and I felt even with that background that I still got a lot out of it for some of the reasons you point out in your review. I was especially interested in the classroom versus hands-on learning debate that seemed to be quite a major factor in the way that navigational training and skills developed in England, France, and the Netherlands. Your analysis for the type of history that Sailing School fits into did get me thinking more about the problems or nuances of historical classification that we have been getting into, especially more recently, and I would love to be able to discuss this further.

]]> By: Laszlo Taba https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/02/review-of-sailing-school-navigating-science-and-skill-1550-1800/#comment-63 Wed, 05 Apr 2023 03:07:13 +0000 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/?p=609#comment-63 Dominick, I enjoyed your review. On the question of the audience, I agree that the intended audience is academics and historians, even though the images and the stories would make a “popular history” audience happy. You write that the book is for people who are interested in “the history of thought and science.” The theme of theory vs. practice is the main way I think she addresses the history to which you’re referring. Also, there’s the discussion of the adoption of mathematics and instruments, too. I guess I’m agreeing with your comments in the last paragraph of your review.

You mention in your first paragraph that she touches on the histories and technologies of six different countries. Maybe I’m still distracted by the comparison between Paris and London in _The_Courtiers’_Anatomists_, but I feel like I want to read more authors who describe/compare how science developed in different countries at roughly the same time. I hope we have a chance to discuss that in class tomorrow. Thanks!

]]> By: Katie Kania https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/02/review-of-sailing-school-navigating-science-and-skill-1550-1800/#comment-60 Tue, 04 Apr 2023 20:17:38 +0000 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/?p=609#comment-60 Hi Dominick, I enjoyed reading your review of Sailing School by Margaret Schotte. I think this has been my favorite book to read so far this semester. I really enjoyed reading about the nautical side of science in so much detail. We’ve had glimpses of it before in our discussions, but it was more on the periphery of other scientific developments. What most interested me was the author’s emphasis on applied, hands-on, learning versus theoretical, classroom, learning for navigators to gain experience with the tools and knowledge they needed on a ship. In class, I think it would be interesting to discuss applied v. theoretical methodologies and to compare it to the other books we’ve read this semester. Something else I liked about the book was how the author organized her topics by place. I thought it brought more depth to the subject by having discussions about maritime practices in the Netherlands, France, and England instead of just focusing on one particular maritime culture.

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