The Atlantic Vision: Olaus Rudbeck and Baroque Science by Gunnar Eriksson, and: Svensk ingenjörskonst under stormaktstiden: Olof Rudbecks tekniska undervisning och praktiska verksamhet by Per Dahl

Abstract

246 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE eastern Brazil. After a number of attempts to establish themselves in South America, in 1630 the Dutch succeeded in securing Olinda and in establishing a colonial enterprise comprising the entire northeast of Brazil, and which lasted until 1654. Soon the Dutch started the design of a new city to be the capital of New Holland. The topography of Olinda and nearby Recife resembled that with which the Dutch were experienced, and the new urban center was designed as Mauritiopolis, honoring Governor Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen. There we see a typical adaptation of European, par­ ticularly Dutch, technology to the new environment. Sala Catalâ summarizes the efforts of the Dutch to create an “urbanized para­ dise” in the tropics. Two major works were essential in this project: a dike and a garden. In addition, the construction of a number of bridges that characterize the Dutch presence in Brazil are well de­ scribed by Sala Catalâ. This is a most important contribution to understanding European attempts to bring to the New World the ideals of an urban civiliza­ tion. José Sala Catalâ left for us an important and stimulating study of this as yet unexplored field of research. Ubiratan D’Ambrosio Dr. D’Ambrosio is professor emeritus, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil, and former president of the Sociedad Latinamericana de Historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnologia and of the Sociedade Brasileira de Historia da Ciência. The Atlantic Vision: Olaus Rudbeck and Baroque Science. Uppsala Studies in History ofScience, Vol. 19. By Gunnar Eriksson. Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications, 1994. Pp. viii+196; illustrations, notes, index. Svensk ingenjôrskonst under stormaktstiden: Olof Rudbecks tekniska undervisning och praktiska verksamhet. Institutionen for idé- och lardomshistoria Uppsala universitet Skrifter nr 14. By Per Dahl. Upp­ sala: Institutionen fôr idé- och lardomshistoria, 1995. Pp. 338; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, summary in English. The 17th century was Sweden’s stormy “Age of Greatness,” with the Baltic Sea as a mare nostrum. The reformed state, its church, and its war machine required able servants. Among other things, this brought about a vitalization of the medieval University of Uppsala. In The Atlantic Vision, Gunnar Eriksson, professor of history of sci­ ence and ideas, deals with a fascinating actor on this scene: Olaus Rudbeck (1630-1702). The son of a prominent bishop, Rudbeck at the age of thirty became a professor at Uppsala, where he worked with energy and force for a modernization of both city and univer­ sity. Despite his discovery of the lymphatic system, as well as contribu­ tions to astronomy and botany, he is best known for the Atlantica, a TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 247 historical work of grandiose patriotism. Eriksson surveys the con­ tents of the four overwhelming volumes for those who read neither Latin nor Swedish. Interpreting a mass of texts and other materials in his own critical way, Rudbeck among other things wanted to show that Sweden was the home of the happy Hyperboreans and that Plato’s description of the capital ofAtlantis in fact fits Old Uppsala. This may not strike one as too surprising an enterprise in an age when genealogy could legitimate power. More surprising is perhaps that it was inspired as much by natural history as by classical scholar­ ship. A scientific modernist in his age, Rudbeck as a historian studied nature and found causal links, e.g., between topography and culture. He conducted experiments and substantiated arguments with statis­ tics; he developed a method of measuring the humus layer that produced surprisingly accurate archaeological datings. Alongside biblical chronology and breakneck etymological arguments was a scientific spirit of skeptical empiricism. Eriksson’s main thesis is that this is not as irreconcilable as it first appears whenjudged by the categories of our age. As a scholar Rud­ beck lived during the period between “renaissance science,” which interpreted texts, and “Newtonian science,” which observed nature. Despite Cartesian inclinations, he was a man of faith, seeking the meaning of creation. Depicting Rudbeck as close to an “ideal type” who was representative ofwhat he calls “baroque science,” Eriksson discusses with profound erudition more well-known representatives of the science of the times. He means...