Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age

by Dániel Margócsy

Entrepreneurial science is not new; business interests have strongly influenced science since the Scientific Revolution. In Commercial Visions , Dániel Margócsy illustrates that product marketing, patent litigation, and even ghostwriting pervaded natural history and medicine―the “big sciences” of the early modern era―and argues that the growth of global trade during the Dutch Golden Age gave rise to an entrepreneurial network of transnational science.
           
Margócsy introduces a number of natural historians, physicians, and curiosi in Amsterdam, London, St. Petersburg, and Paris who, in their efforts to boost their trade, developed modern taxonomy, invented color printing and anatomical preparation techniques, and contributed to philosophical debates on topics ranging from human anatomy to Newtonian optics. These scientific practitioners, including Frederik Ruysch and Albertus Seba, were out to do they produced and sold exotic curiosities, anatomical prints, preserved specimens, and atlases of natural history to customers all around the world. Margócsy reveals how their entrepreneurial rivalries transformed the scholarly world of the Republic of Letters into a competitive marketplace.
           
Margócsy’s highly readable and engaging book will be warmly welcomed by anyone interested in early modern science, global trade, art, and culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2014

Reviews

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author takes us to the place where science, technology, art, and collecting started to differentiate. Not all of the Enlightenment science was taking place in royal societies by disinterested mathematicians, there were also plenty of tinkerers. An herbarium may have served as the much later stamp catalog, scholarly debates may have served very particular financial interests of the professors.

I found the book diligently researched, dropping so many names that just the googling was a major adventure, containing many beautiful and instructive images. There are plenty of entertaining anecdotes documenting the social milieu of anatomists, herbalists, printers, and their customers in Netherlands of 17-18th century; there also is a lot of theorizing about the search for scientific consensus and about historiography of early modern science. Too much of the latter to my taste, but a great read anyway.

[Xinyi Wen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished in the bed in 3.5 hours on iPhone and fully absorbed. It’s great. Like the general idea challenging the myth of transparency of science and communication. And fascinating evidence. More to be noted when I quote it (i.e. in the discussion of natural secrets and commercial secrets, or universalism and nationalism in Nieremberg). Surprised and not surprised by the way how the author engaged contemporary theorists in the story.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it a bit dull--Margocsy shows how a lot of scientific exchange was affected by financial issues (protecting trade secrets, making a living).