Ranging from Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia to the European Enlightenment, Jacques Blamont demonstrates here how much scientific progress owes to sovereigns moved by the thirst for conquest. He shows us vividly how Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Newton, and a host of unknowns toiled against a background of oppression, war and madness. He also describes the scientific institutions and the political issues at stake, without which the great collective enterprise of modern science would not have been possible.
Jacques Blamont is a professor at the University of Paris-VI and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He is one of the fathers of the French space programme and was formerly the scientific director of the CNES. He is most notably the author of Vénus dévoilée, Le Lion et le Moucheron: Histoire des marranes de Toulouse and Introduction au siècle des menaces.