Horizons

Shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize

Named a Best Book of the Year by the Financial Times and BBC History Magazine

A groundbreaking, global retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, exploding the myth that science began in Europe.

When we think about the origins of modern science, we usually begin in Europe, praising the great minds of Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein. But this narrow Western gaze is only one part of the story. The reality was an utterly global, nonlinear pattern of cross-fertilization, competition, cooperation and outright conflict. Each rupture in history carved fresh channels for global exchange. Award-winning professor James Poskett celebrates how scientists from Africa, America, Asia, and the Pacific were integral to this very human story. We meet Graman Kwasi, the African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria; Hantaro Nagaoka, the Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom; and Zhao Zhongyao, the Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter. Horizons is a richly informative and timely reminder that scientific achievement is, and has always been, a global endeavor.

"Superb...This is not just a history of science. It is a history of the modern world seen through the lens of science.” — Los Angeles Review of Books

 “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