Following his major work on Rudolf Steiner's ten visits to Britain, Crispian Villeneuve studies Steiner's relationship to the British Isles during the approximately forty years before those visits. The theme of Steiner's early connection to British culture leads inevitably to the broader topic of his relationship to modern science. This in turn highlights the polarity and tension between the Goethean philosophic view that arises from Central Europe, and the "Baconian" perspective emanating from Western Europe.

Interweaving these contrasting Baconian and Goethean worldviews, Villeneuve...