In the tradition of "fool literature" produced by the ferment of new ideas that directly preceded the Protestant Reformation, Dutch priest, humanist, and scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) composed The Praise of Folly in 1509. Under Folly's mask, Erasmus boldly attacked the abuses of church and state, and pilloried the faults of those he saw around him: idle superstition, pedantry, religious hypocrisy, and human foolishness. In this elegant translation from the Latin by John Wilson, the reader can savor a great work of satire, which, in the classical tradition, chastises human beings for...

Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles) is considered to be among the finest scientific works ever published. His grand unifying idea of gravitation, with effects extending throughout the solar system, explains by one principle such diverse phenomena as the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and the irregularities of the moon's motion.

Newton's brilliant and revolutionary contributions to science explained the workings of a large part of inanimate nature mathematically and suggested that the remainder might be understood in a similar fashion. By...

The Ptolemaic system of the universe, with the earth at the center, had held sway since antiquity as authoritative in philosophy, science, and church teaching. Following his observations of the heavenly bodies, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) abandoned the geocentric system for a heliocentric model, with the sun at the center. His remarkable work, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, stands as one of the greatest intellectual revolutions of all time, and profoundly influenced, among others, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.

The brilliant German mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), one of the founders of modern astronomy, revolutionized the Copernican heliocentric theory of the universe with his three laws of motion: that the planets move not in circular but elliptical orbits, that their speed is greatest when nearest the sun, and that the sun and planets form an integrated system. This volume contains two of his most important works: The Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (books 4 and 5 of which are translated here) is a textbook of Copernican science, remarkable for the prominence given to physical astronomy...

The once-dreaded scourge of smallpox has been eradicated through barrier immunization. The eminent scientist Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was a pioneer in demonstrating that vaccination was an effective means of preventing smallpox. In the three groundbreaking treatises contained in this volume, originally published between 1798 and 1800, Jenner summarizes his evidence in favor of vaccination and describes individual cases.

The great scientists Louis Pasteur (1822-1893) and Joseph Lister (1827-1912) extended the practice of inoculation and revolutionised medical practice. Following Pasteur's researches, Lister proceeded to develop his antiseptic surgical methods. These breakthroughs in medicine are to be reckoned among the greatest discoveries of the 19th century.

David Ricardo (1772-1823), the founder of the classical school of economics, applied the deductive logic of the philosopher James Mill to the analysis of monetary principles. His chief work, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, first published in 1817, had a profound impact and remains one of the groundworks of modern economics. Ricardo's labor theory of value, as well as his elaboration of the division of incomes, and the function of wages, rent, and trade, deeply influenced the economic philosophies of Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, and many others.

Distinguished British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) set off a series of movements that drastically altered the ways in which economists view the world. In his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keynes critiqued the laissez-faire policies of his day, particularly the proposition that a normally functioning market economy would bring full employment. Keynes's forward-looking work transformed economics from merely a descriptive and analytic discipline into one that is policy oriented. For Keynes, enlightened government...

British economist Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) was one of the founders of the "neoclassical" school in which economists studied both wealth and human behavior to understand why we make the choices we do. First published in 1890, Principles of Economics stands as Marshall's most influential work. This abridged edition offers a general introduction to the study of economics, dealing mainly with normal conditions of industry, employment, and wages. It begins by isolating the primary relations of supply, demand, and price in regard to a particular commodity. Following his study of science,...

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), the controversial American economist and social critic, argues that economics is essentially a study of the economic aspects of human culture, which are in a constant state of flux. In his best-known work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen appropriated Darwin's theory of evolution to analyze the modern industrial system.

While industry itself demanded diligence, efficiency, and cooperation, businessmen in opposition to engineers and industrialists were only interested in making money and displaying their wealth in what Veblen coined...