https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/09/missionary-scientists-book-review/ HIST 615/635 Spring 2023 Wed, 12 Apr 2023 20:17:44 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/09/missionary-scientists-book-review/#comment-71 Wed, 12 Apr 2023 20:17:44 +0000 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/?p=617#comment-71 Alexa, thank you for this review. You do a good job laying out the different aspects of the book. Andre I. Prieto’s credentials seem very relevant to the for this week and makes him suited for such research. His work on Native American history in the 18th century is directly related to this week’s discussion, and it’s good to see he has some work forthcoming. You do a good job of pointing out one main goal in Missionary Scientists, which was to map out how the different conflicts that the Jesuits faced helped form their methodologies and religious strategies for conversion. Your interpretations of the chapters are similar to my own in highlighting the stories of figures like Mascardi, Cobo, and Acosta. You mention that you would recommend this book to someone interested and science and religion during this time period. I wonder if the audience intended for this book is strictly academic or generally just people interested in these topics. I have gone back and forth on this. The book furthers our class discussion on the relationship between science, scientists, and religion. I suspect this may be where a good majority of the class discussion will be focused on.

]]> https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/09/missionary-scientists-book-review/#comment-70 Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:39:35 +0000 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/?p=617#comment-70 Great review, Alexa! It seems to me like you found this book intriguing, particularly as it is concerned with telling an intellectual history of scientific thought through these men of religion. I think it is a topic I would like to see discussed tonight as I think there are some interesting comparisons to be made between the methodology and topic of this book with some of the ones we have already read like Sailing School and Engineering the Eternal City. I do agree too that perhaps a more explicit or detailed discussion of where Pietro’s work fit within the historiography might have helped both with his argument as well as with contextualization.

]]>