Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe

Freely (physics, Bosphorous Univ., Istanbul; Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World) writes here of the people who sought explanations of happenings in the natural world, as well as the works they wrote about what they found, from roughly 400 BCE to CE 1700. He charts the path of scientific movements among cultures (primarily Christian Europe and the Muslim Mediterranean and Middle East) depending on extant information of historical events and individuals, and the translations thereof. Earlier works on this topic have less breadth, as one would expect, because fewer works survived. However, readers will appreciate Freely's comprehensiveness, particularly when he reaches later periods (e.g., around 1000 CE). Among the small but significant events Freely discusses is how something as relatively simple as understanding and explaining the shape, angle, and colors of rainbows could prompt European science to leap radically forward.