Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories, Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to. And rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people-men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals. Science: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites sciences past. Instead of focussing on esoteric experiments and abstract theories, she explains how science belongs to the practical world of war, politics, and business. We see for instance how Muslim leaders encouraged science by building massive libraries, hospitals, and astronomical observatories and we rediscover the significance of medieval Europe-long overlooked-where, surprisingly, religious institutions ensured science's survival, as the learning preserved in monasteries was subsequently developed in new and unique institutions: universities. Sweeping through the centuries from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, Fara's book also ranges internationally, challenging notions of European superiority by emphasizing the importance of scientific projects based around the world, including revealing discussions of China and the Islamic Empire alongside the more familiar stories about Copernicus's sun-centered astronomy, Newton's gravity, and Darwin's theory of evolution. Her most recent book is A Lab of One’s Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War (2018) others include Newton: The Making of Genius (2002), An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment (2002), Sex, Botany and Empire (2003) and Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (2004).In Science, Patricia Fara rewrites science's past to provide new ways of understanding and questioning our modern technological society. Her Science: A Four Thousand Year History (2009) is translated into nine languages and was awarded the Dingle Prize by the British Society for the History of Science.
A regular contributor to popular journals as well as In our Time and other radio/TV programmes, she has published a range of academic and popular books on the history of science. Her major research specialities are science in Enlightenment Britain, scientific imagery, and topics related to women in science now and in the past.
A Fellow of Clare College, she teaches in the History and Philosophy of Science department at Cambridge University, and from 2016-18 was President of the British Society for the History of Science. Patricia Fara has a degree in physics from Oxford University and a PhD in History of Science from London University (1992).
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