Author: Alexa Shipes

In Benjamin Wardhaugh’s book Poor Robin’s Prophecies: A Curious Almanac, and the Everyday Mathematics of Georgian Britain, the author explores the culture of almanacs and mathematics in eighteenth-century Britain. Wardhaugh obtained his DPhil from Hertford College, Oxford and his Bachelor’s from Trinity College at Cambridge. His research interests include the application of mathematics in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, as well as mathematical theories of music. Several of Wardhaugh’s recent works include The Wealth of Numbers and Gunpowder and Geometry: The Remarkable Life of Charles Hutton. With his knowledge of history and mathematics, Wardhaugh is well-positioned to author a text such as Poor Robin’s Prophecies, with its specific focus on how everyday people interacted with mathematics in early modern Britain.

Instead of an introduction, the author leaps into Chapter One and succinctly states that the book will focus of everyday people and what math did, and conversely, did not do for them in this historical context. The reader is well-prepared to understand his intent of showing how math can get things right and wrong, yet also be considered fun. Within Chapter One, Poor Robin’s Almanac is introduced as a light-hearted, yet satirical almanac that reflects how math could be considered in a fun nature. Almanacs were structured in a different way from the Old Farmer’s Almanacs typically found today, as they often contained political satire, crash courses in mythology or geometry, and medical recipes. Poor Robin’s stance on math was presented through the lens of the poor in terms of their oppression and lack of power. Chapter Two sets the stage to better understand math and its impact to one’s life. Describing two key occurrences helps the author illustrate how math could be perceived as sometimes “getting it wrong” with the examples of the 1699 solar eclipse misinterpretation and the issues surrounding the joint-stock companies, such as the South Sea Company, which was a financial bubble that popped, causing economic disaster. This chapter dealt more with economics as an applied math and the associated reputation of math. As the author transitions to Chapter Three and explains who learned math and in what manner in the eighteenth century, the book’s strength as a reflection on everyday mathematics is apparent. The author depicted women’s lack of math education as an unfortunate byproduct of the period, but he did not discount that women learned math that would be useful in their daily lives. Examination of the relationship between women and math extends into Chapter Four as it delves into an explanation of women and their responsibility for household accounting, thus seeing mathematics in the context of usefulness. The practice of gauging, which was used for taxation, is introduced, along with surveying. Poor Robin even shifted content to share tables, thus showing math in more usable context. A weakness could be in the shift to the content of Chapter Five, which focused on the perceived beauty of math. It explores how math was viewed as therapeutic and healing, as scholars in the eighteenth century believed that math could cure or prevent mental illness. However, the author provides a visual explanation in terms of geometry texts with their diagrams, color inks and illustrative nature, which brings the beauty to life. Math in the setting of a beautiful mind may be more difficult to grasp, but as the author relates it to intellectual curiosity, it makes better sense. Chapter Six was perhaps the most difficult chapter to synthesize in terms of mathematics and the order of the world. With this chapter, it may be a leap for a more casual reader as they may not have grounding in the mindset of the period. However, when the author describes the resultant struggles with the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the reader could gain a better understanding of the fiscal impact in terms of leases, taxes, contracts, and farming. Order, as a legacy of the Renaissance-era Chain of Being, was paramount. Everyone in society supposedly knew their place, just as every aspect of the government, from the calendar to the national debt, depended on math to keep it in working order. The author’s transitions between chapters provides continuity and serves as an introduction to the following chapter. In Chapter Seven, the author discusses the mathematics of artillery, in which the author spends a significant amount of time writing about the interrelation between cannonballs, physics, and math as England was embroiled in ongoing conflicts. This chapter highlights the evolution of math from the everyday life aspect to a larger-scale impact, focusing on military and order. The text concludes with Chapter Eight, in which the author discusses everyday math in the context of the lottery and other games of chance. The author expresses that math can be played with, like a game of chance. Mathematics is shown at this point to be fun. Of note, this happened to coincide with the introduction of probability theory. Chapter Eight seems to serve a dual purpose as a chapter as well as an epilogue for the story of Poor Robin. In this last chapter, it also provided a retrospective view of almanacs. Readers may wonder why the author decided to consolidate this as a chapter instead of adding an epilogue. It explains Poor Robin’s Almanac and its unique place in history, as it was superseded by almanacs that only included facts and figures. Authors such as Charles Dickens decried the soul-crushing nature of Victorian mathematics, and looked upon Poor Robin’s Almanac, with its blend of humor and mathematical knowledge, with a degree of nostalgia.

I would recommend this book to those that have a keen interest in the intersection of history and mathematics as an everyday tool in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. The author strategically uses his knowledge of Poor Robin’s Almanac as a backbone to understanding how the average person understood math. Poor Robin’s Prophecies made mathematics in early modern Britain generally relatable and readable to those that may consider themselves less knowledgeable in the field of mathematics. For readers who may have experienced struggles with math in their academic career, this book may prove to be slightly difficult to read, as one of the chapters gets deeper into the concepts of trigonometry. The contents of Chapter Eight may be of interest to those familiar with the works of Fermat, Pascal, their letters, and the games of chance referenced in The Unfinished Game and the interrelationship with probability theory and mathematics as fun. The author specializes in the history of math and based on his list of publications is a subject matter expert, but the book may appeal to a larger audience if he would have made this book more digestible by cutting back on some of the deeper and more intensive mathematical content. However, I was left with a better understanding of how ordinary people used math in eighteenth-century England despite my preconceived notions about my mathematical abilities. The book that Poor Robin’s Prophecies most resembles in the historiography of the Scientific Revolution is Sailing School, where the mathematics behind navigation received special attention. The interplay of complex math and practical concepts was just as prominent in Sailing School as it was in Poor Robin’s Prophecies.

In Matthew James Crawford’s The Andean Wonder Drug, the author explores the discovery, use, and imperial connections of cinchona bark, spanning from the mid-sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century. Dr. Crawford obtained his PhD and his Masters from the University of California’s San Diego campus and teaches at Kent State University, where he specializes in the early modern Iberian Atlantic world. Dr. Crawford is known for works related to the Andes and healing, such as “The Extirpation of Idolatry and the Secularization of Nature: Jesuits, Missionaries, and Indigenous Healing Knowledge in Early Modern Peru (1590-1710),” “A Cure for Empire? An Andean Wonder Drug and the Politics of Knowledge in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish Empire,” and Drugs on the Page: Pharmacopoeias and Healing Knowledge in the Early Modern Atlantic World, which he co-edited with another author. This compilation of authoritative works establish Dr. Crawford as a subject matter expert in the study of Andean healing knowledge.

In the introduction, Crawford clearly sets the stage for the content of the book, using his sources to construct his argument about the efficacies of cinchona as a true wonder drug. However, the introduction was verbose and could be problematic for readers to digest if they lack sufficient working knowledge of the topic. The major themes of the book are well-documented, and it is apparent that the author plans to address science and empire, early modern science, and the politics of knowledge. The author’s intent in Chapter One is to establish cinchona bark as a remedy from the Andean world. Crawford educates the reader about how cinchona trees grew in the forests of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes, as well as how the bark was used to treat malaria during the Spanish conquest of the region. The usage of cinchona by Andean healers was a reaction to malaria’s arrival in the region, and Crawford’s strength is in giving the reader context about how it became a powerful antimalarial drug. Continuing the theme of colonialism, Chapter Two explains the sixteenth-century origins of cinchona bark as an antimalarial drug and reluctance towards its use to provide context. Europeans were initially hesitant to utilize cinchona bark for malaria, as the bark was seen as “hot,” and one could not treat a fever with something hot according to humoral theory. The author expands upon the themes of science and empire in Chapter Three, where he discusses how cinchona bark became a vital natural resource for the Spanish Empire. Many European empires were interested in the plants that grew in their overseas territories, both for economic and political reasons. However, by the 1770s, the cinchona trees, as a result of intensive harvesting, began to disappear, thus impacting the availability of cinchona bark, the impact of which plays out in later chapters. In an intriguing shift in perspective, Chapter Four discusses the bark collectors and the king’s pharmacists as the main protagonists. The Royal Pharmacy in Madrid was in charge of assessing the quality of the bark, which was difficult to transport and in finite supply. There was a hierarchy of distribution for the cinchona bark, as the best bark was designated for the usage of the royal family, while the lesser qualities were for use by foreign dignitaries and the general public. This might have been an interesting point for the author to have interjected his opinions to see if he had a bias, as he could have brought in medical ethics. The most effective cinchona was used only by the elite, which gives rise to a host of issues involving medicine being viewed as either a right or a privilege. With the shift from pharmacists being the experts on cinchona to botanists filling that role, Chapter Five explores the role of bark collectors. Known as cascarillos, they had to venture deeper into the South American continent to find cinchona trees, as the trees in the Andean region were disappearing. Crawford states that the General Hospital in Madrid was given shipments of cinchona bark to test on patients with various types of malarial fevers. A weakness of Crawford’s work is that I would have liked to have heard the author’s opinion. Chapter Six addresses how plantations had to be introduced in order to replenish the supply of cinchona bark. A strength of Crawford’s work is that he explains why the Spanish crown cared enough about the cinchona trees to suggest replanting them, as cinchona bark was a valuable export from Spanish South America. The author returns to the themes of science and empire in Chapter Seven when he deals with the “war of the quinas,” which was a dispute about the botanical classifications of cinchona between several scientists. One of these scientists supported a royal monopoly on cinchona, viewing a free market as anathema to the vision of empire. The conclusion effectively serves as an epilogue, ending in the nineteenth century with the transplanting of cinchona trees from South America to South Asia to further the British imperial project. British writers claimed that the cinchona tree was about to go extinct, but modern historians have shown that these accounts were exaggerated. Historians play a central role in correcting skewed interpretations of the past, whether they be about the possibility of the cinchona tree going extinct or the destruction of the USS Maine in Havana. The conclusion serves as the culmination of Crawford’s argument, showing that cinchona really was, for all intents and purposes, an Andean wonder drug.

I would recommend this book to someone interested in the pivotal role cinchona bark played in early modern medicine. A notable strength of Crawford’s authoritative text is that he wrote about how cinchona was used as an antimalarial in reaction to the Spanish conquest. In contrast, the weaknesses of the text are its verbosity, especially in the introduction, and its use of foreign terms readers might not understand. In terms of sources utilized, the author had a well-written notes section, but it was strange that he placed essential details that would have provided needed context in his notes. Crawford’s writing style could be verbose and difficult to understand at times, but the overall style of the book was generally readable, and the topic was interesting. The book kept to the themes stated in the introduction, and followed a clear layout as it was broken into two parts that dealt with different themes of the export and use of cinchona bark. As I read the text, I was clear to the intent of the author’s themes in The Andean Wonder Drug were, as the author provided that groundwork in the introduction. A condensed introduction would have been incredibly helpful to understand the author’s intentions better. The author did present his evidence effectively as the nature of the book explored the healing and restorative properties of cinchona bark through the explanation of illness and subsequent treatment with the bark. The book that The Andean Wonder Drug most resembles in the historiography of the Scientific Revolution is Missionary Scientists. Both The Andean Wonder Drug and Missionary Scientists deal with matters of indigenous healing practices that were appropriated by the Spanish for their own needs and imperial desires.

In Andrés I. Prieto’s Missionary Scientists, the author explores the missionary zeal and scientific activities of Jesuit priests in South America, starting in the late sixteenth century and ending in 1767 with the expulsion of the Jesuits from the continent. Dr. Prieto obtained his PhD and his Masters at the University of Connecticut, but he obtained his Bachelor’s from the Universidad Catolica de Chile, which is located in Santiago. He is the Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Some of Prieto’s recent works include “Confessing to be an Indian: Penance and the Creation of a Native Self in José de Acosta’s Missiology,” “From the Devil’s Herb to Saint Thomas’ Gift: The Christianization of Guarani Sacred Plants in the Jesuit Reductions in Paraguay,” and José de Acosta: A Jesuit at the Service of Empire, which is due to be published this year.

The author is clear in his introduction that he is delving into an aspect of South American history that has not been academically examined. The groundwork is laid for an exploration of the relationship between science and religion in the Jesuit missions, which were places where priests could dedicate themselves to studying theology and natural science simultaneously. Prieto organizes his book into three parts, where the focus is on a writer or prominent Jesuit, with the goal of demonstrating the underappreciated role South American Jesuits played in the development of science in the early modern period. In Chapter One, Prieto describes the sixteenth-century conflict between the viceroy of Peru and the Jesuits. The Jesuits were more focused on integration into the secular lives of the cities where they lived, whereas the viceroy was more concerned with bringing order to a country ravaged by civil war. This conflict forced the Jesuits into the countryside, as the viceroy assumed they would continue along their traditional missionary path. However, this ignited a scientific curiosity in the Jesuits. Readers are introduced to José de Acosta, a theologian and Jesuit whose magnum opus was entitled the Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, where he laid out his understanding of New World nature and cosmology. The Historia is effectively a manifesto for empire, as one cannot have an understanding of the New World at this time without the Spanish Empire. Prieto shifts to the medical aspects of Jesuit science in Chapter Two. Focusing on Chile, Prieto describes how if a Spanish colonist fell ill, they chose the services of a machi, or Mapuche shaman, instead of those of a Spanish doctor or surgeon. However, the Jesuits characterized the machi as devil worshippers, silencing the perspective of them as healers, revealing the Jesuits outside of their missionary norm. The Jesuits had to overcome their biases against native medicine, especially native herbs, in order to treat patients effectively. In Chapter Three, he shifts to the parallels of what is happening in Paraguay and the difference between medical treatment in Paraguay compared to Chile. In the Paraguayan missions, medical treatment was deeply intertwined with religion. The Jesuits kept medicinal herbs under lock and key, and regulated the dosages for patients. This practice was meant to prevent native converts from returning to their ancestral gods, but it functioned as a highly effective method of social control. Chapter Four introduces the reader to Bernabé Cobo, a Jesuit who authored the History of the New World, of which only the first volume has survived. Cobo traveled across the Jesuit network of missions and obtained objects ranging from Paraguayan geodes to fossils from Lima. In his quest for knowledge about South American natural history, Cobo was confirmed in his belief that the Edenic landscape of South America reflected God’s omnipotence. With Chapter Five, Prieto examines the international nature of the Jesuit order by introducing Niccolò Mascardi, an Italian who studied under the Jesuits in Rome. While in Rome, he was involved with verifying Galileo’s observations of Jupiter’s moons. In 1652, Mascardi was sent to Chile and wanted to preach amongst the native peoples there. He was assigned to the Mission Buena Esperanza, which was highly successful as a Jesuit mission. Mascardi’s circumstances as being both a missionary and an astronomer were unusual at the time, especially as the Inquisition was putting Galileo on trial when Mascardi was a student in Rome. Chapter Six takes the reader back to the sixteenth century and José de Acosta’s book. The chapter is a deeper dive into Acosta’s work within the context of subsequent missionary experiences in Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina. Acosta’s work is also situated within the context of the sixteenth century relationship between science and religion, with debates over vana curiositas dominating the minds of theologians. Chapter Seven compares Acosta’s book and Cobo’s work by showing their different philosophical perspectives. Acosta thought that nature was part of God’s plan for humanity, while Cobo thought that it was a reflection of the glory of God. These two different perspectives come from distinct theological schools of thought about nature. Acosta was a follower of the Augustinian school, where everything in nature conformed to God’s plan for the universe, and that to attempt to explain it was a sin. Cobo followed the Thomistic school, where nature was part of God’s majesty here on Earth. Prieto details in Chapter Eight how Cobo compiled his History of the New World for publication, but he died before seeing it in print. In fact, it would take until the 1890s for the book to be published. Prieto explains that the delay in publication was caused by Cobo being somewhat of a renegade, as his Jesuit superiors wanted him to abandon his scientific research and fully devote himself to preaching. The epilogue culminates with the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America. Unfortunately, the Spanish authorities began to use the Jesuits as a scapegoat for the problems faced at the time, and the edict of expulsion was issued in 1767, thus exiling the Jesuits to Europe and ending their tenure in South America.

Missionary Scientists provides a reader with an in-depth analysis of the little-known role of South American Jesuits in furthering scientific understanding in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I would recommend this book to someone interested in the complex relationship between science and religion in this era, where Jesuits could be both missionaries and scientists. Instead of a standard narrative, the author chose to pull out selected Jesuits as case studies to provide insights into the intricacies of their missionary work, thus allowing the reader better insight into the primary sources and the ability to place them in a broader Atlantic context. The author’s well-written notes section provided easy-to-digest insight and commentary that furthered the understanding of Missionary Scientists. Perhaps some context would have been helpful in the introduction to understand why this topic has not been covered by modern historiography. The title of the book seemed like an oxymoron, as one would not typically associate missionaries with science, but Prieto shows us that the Jesuits augmented their missionary work with their scientific discoveries, seeing it as a way to further the glory of God.

Anita Guerrini’s The Courtiers’ Anatomists is a well-written text that pulls its readers into the intersection of animal and human dissection and vivisection in the context Louis XIV’s Paris. The central theme is that of dissection and experimental methods employed by the courtiers’ anatomists. Dr. Guerrini obtained her Ph.D. from Indiana University, specializing in the history and philosophy of science. Some of her works include “Duverney’s Skeletons,” “The King’s Animals and the King’s Books: The Illustrations for the Paris Academy’s Histoire des animaux,” and Experimenting with Humans and Animals from Aristotle to CRISPR. For The Courtiers’ Anatomists, Dr. Guerrini was awarded the Pfizer Prize in 2018. Guerrini’s writing style in The Courtiers’ Anatomists merges history and philosophy with science, creating a space where the focus is on the accomplishments of the anatomists rather than on the rule of Louis XIV.

The Courtiers’ Anatomists is succinctly laid out, with an introduction, chapters with headings and subheadings, a conclusion, and an epilogue. The introduction lays the groundwork for later chapters in the book. It is clear and concise in terms of what the book is about and where it is positioned in history. The themes of dissection and vivisection of animals, as well as the intersection of anatomy and natural history, are introduced, as they are prominent throughout the book. Chapter One begins with Guerrini painting a lurid picture of how corpses were exhumed for dissection by “resurrection men” employed by the prominent anatomists of the day. Corpses were a commodity, as medical students, surgeons, and anatomists all needed a fresh supply. One must also understand the historical context of Paris at the time, as the anatomists also obtained living specimens from the streets, typically stray dogs. As the author transitions to Chapter Two, the discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey in the 1620s and the discovery of so-called “lacteal veins” by a Milanese doctor named Aselli take center stage. Aselli believed that these veins ended at the liver, where, according to the Galenic view prevalent in medicine at the time, blood was generated. Thomas Bartholin, an early French anatomist, concluded that these “lacteal veins” were part of the lymphatic system. Chapter Three explores the anatomical projects and the primary anatomists of the Paris Academy. It opens with a foray into blood transfusion, which was done on dogs through vivisection and was ultimately unsuccessful. The fact that the body would attack the wrong kind of transfused blood, something modern medicine takes for granted, was unknown in the seventeenth century. Guerrini surfaces a counternarrative of the ongoing philosophical debates surrounding animals. Descartes believed that animals were like machines, driven only by instinct. Humans, however, were believed to be free actors, shaping their own destinies. Emotion was believed to be uniquely human, as was the afterlife. In sharp contrast to Descartes’ view, Marin Cureau de la Chambre, a Parisian anatomist, broke with centuries of tradition by stating that the ability to feel pain was a conscious act. He believed that animals had souls, emotions, and the ability to choose between good and evil. In Chapter Four, the reader is introduced to the first “exotic” dissections at the Academy, with the king’s menagerie as a source of “exotic” animals. It also brings up the publication of the Histoire des animaux, an illustrated atlas of animals from around the world. Chapter Five continues the thread of exotic dissections, bringing in the royal menagerie from which the anatomists obtained their specimens. The anatomists were given a chameleon to experiment on, and they shattered several longstanding beliefs about the species. When they wrapped the chameleon in a tablecloth, it became pale but not white, showing that chameleons do not change color automatically. In Chapter Six, the focus is on how Duverney lectured at the Jardin du Roi to paying audiences, often conducting vivisections or dissections in front of court ladies and city financiers. In 1694, Claude Perrault’s brother Charles published his interpretations of classic fairy tales, some of which later inspired Disney movies, such as his retelling of Cinderella. In that story, the interchangeable nature of humans and animals was in direct parallel to what was going on in the anatomists’ lectures. Animals stood in for humans as test subjects, as exhuming human remains was fraught with cultural issues. However, Perrault’s fairy tales also had a cruel undertone: his retelling of Little Red Riding Hood had the wolf eat both the girl and her grandmother. Duverney and the other anatomists knew that the animals they were experimenting on were in pain, but that did not hinder their quest for knowledge. As the author transitions to the conclusion, she points out that the Paris Academy was dependent on the goodwill of the crown. When Louis XIV lost interest in the anatomists’ project, he terminated the supply of animals from the royal menagerie. The epilogue deals with the legacy of the Histoire des animaux in the eighteenth century. Guerrini states that the Histoire des animaux occupies a place in history between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

The author is explicit in her introduction about the goals of her book. Guerrini’s primary themes are the anatomists, animals and natural history, and the interrelationship of dissection, vivisection, experience, and experiment. When focusing on the anatomists, Guerrini relates their role to that of the courtiers and the monarchy. The anatomists were dependent on royal funds, and the whims of the king often terminated projects, such as the menagerie dissections. Guerrini relates an anecdote about a time when the patronage of Louis XIV’s advisor Colbert meant that cats were unable to be experimented on, as Colbert was an avid cat fancier. Patronage was a palpable exertion of royal power. Guerrini also writes about dissection’s role as a form of seventeenth-century innovation. Dissection was at the forefront of seventeenth-century medical knowledge, showing doctors what the inside of the body looked like long before X-rays and ultrasound technology. However, dissection did nothing to quell the popularity of bloodletting, which was still seen as beneficial well into the nineteenth century. The theme of animals and natural history is another major part of the narrative. Anatomy and natural history intersected in many ways in the seventeenth century, and the Histoire des animaux depicted animals both in life and in dissected form. The book showed how the dissection of animals sparked an interest in natural history amongst scientists of the time period, as can be seen in the epilogue. The dichotomies of dissection and vivisection, experience and experiment, are also prominent in The Courtiers’ Anatomists. The educated public paid to see these dissections and vivisections, which were often accompanied by the lectures of the anatomists themselves. The curiosity of both the anatomists and the educated public was fueled by a deep-seated desire to know everything about the world around them.

The Courtiers’ Anatomists was a thorough and thoughtful account of a lesser-known chapter in scientific history, which could appeal both to historians and to individuals in the medical field. I would recommend this book to historians seeking a deeper understanding of the world of Louis XIV and how science played into the Age of Absolutism. From a different perspective, I would recommend this book to those in the medical field who want to explore how the dissections and vivisections of this time period paved the way for modern medicine.

In Pamela O. Long’s book Engineering the Eternal City: Infrastructure, Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome (Engineering the Eternal City), the focus is on the engineering projects that changed Rome from a medieval city into a Renaissance city. Dr. Long got her PhD in Renaissance and Reformation history from the University of Maryland at College Park, with a dissertation that focused on architecture and Vitruvian commentaries. Engineering the Eternal City, published in 2018, was awarded the Sidney M. Edelstein Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, among other honors. Long’s previous works include Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance¸ published in 2001, and Technology, Society, and Culture in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe, published in 2000.

The major themes of Engineering the Eternal City are infrastructure and the culture of knowledge in late sixteenth-century Rome. In Rome, most of the inhabited areas of the city were within the confines of the Tiber River’s floodplain. When floods struck the city, such as in 1557, the devastation was widespread and deadly. Long states that the floodwaters reached up to 60 feet in height, which caused the deaths of about one thousand people and damaged an unknown amount of property. Other infrastructure-related problems included the aqueducts, which had fallen into disrepair when the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist, and the sewers, which were no longer connected to one another and adversely impacted public health as a result. The ancient Romans had laid the groundwork for this system of sewers and aqueducts, but their system was repaired regularly. In sixteenth-century Rome, people regarded bad air as a cause of disease, following the Galenic tradition. Thus, drinking water from a fountain was not considered dangerous, even if the pipes were broken and the water had been standing for a few weeks. Long cites a case study of when water was linked to disease: after someone drank from a fountain and died, the physicians did not link the man’s death to bad air (mal aria in Latin), but instead to contaminated water. Whether the physicians knew that the man’s death was linked to what we would define as contaminated water or not is a moot point: what matters is that they linked the cause (people dumping household waste into a public water fountain used for drinking) to the effect (the man dying from drinking the water).

The culture of knowledge is an important secondary theme in Long’s book. Topography played a critical role in determining what engineering projects went forward and which ones did not. The very fact that most of Rome’s inhabited districts lay within the Tiber floodplain provided the impetus for ambitious engineering projects designed to limit the extent of the damage, such as digging a moat around the Castel Sant’Angelo, which would absorb some of the floodwaters. However, the problem of flooding was not resolved until 1910, when engineers built a floodwall to contain the Tiber. This solution required the technological innovation of the Industrial Revolution in order to work, and the people of the sixteenth century had insufficient technology to achieve this ultimate goal. Maps and guidebooks were a way in which the outside world saw Rome promoted as a beautiful Renaissance city. Urban planners also used ancient maps of Rome, such as the Forma Urbis Romae, to plan their engineering projects. The streets were seen not just as structures, but as places for people to congregate. Long goes into detail about the types of people one would find on a typical Roman street in the late sixteenth century, mentioning Jews, prostitutes, and beggars among them. Attempts to reform the city through engineering went hand-in-hand with social reforms intended to aid its people. The reforms affected these groups differently, as the Jews were confined to a ghetto, while the Colosseum was almost converted into accommodations for Rome’s beggars. The plan never came to fruition due to the high cost and how much in taxes it would have required from the Roman people. Long takes care to remind the modern reader that in the sixteenth century, the pope controlled more than the Vatican, as he controlled much of the area surrounding Rome, as well as the city itself. The popes also spent money on repairing ancient structures, which led to higher taxes for the Roman populace and made the popes who spent money on the ancient structures unpopular, especially in times of need. Rome suffered a famine in the 1580s and a flood in 1589, which made any attempt to divert funds from the people’s needs unpopular.

Long’s account of the rebuilding of Rome is well-written and enjoyable. The only criticism I would have is that there is too much of a focus on the social side of things in Chapter Seven. It is interesting to hear about the papal processions and the treatment of non-elite people, as well as non-Christians. The connection between the social reforms and the engineering projects felt tenuous at best. In one moment, I was reading about these remarkably forward-thinking flood prevention projects and the book suddenly changed course to talking about how the Jews were treated in Rome after 1555. It felt disjointed, and I felt that the author could have spent more time on questions of public health, such as what motivated the Pope to order that the Pontine Marshes be drained. If the other chapters had expanded upon the social aspect of this time period, then Chapter Seven would not feel nearly as disjointed. When one places it within the greater context of the book as it is, the chapter’s shift in focus feels jarring.

Overall, Engineering the Eternal City is well-written, enjoyable, and organized. If one’s knowledge of Roman history begins with the ancient Romans but has a large gap between the fall of Rome and the present, this book serves as an excellent introduction to how Rome eventually became a modern city. Engineering the Eternal City is an interesting book that would appeal to specialists in historical architecture and engineering, as well as the interested general reader.