Why the scientific revolution was far from just a European phenomenon

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There is, however, a big problem with this account of the origins of modern science. By focusing on a few European geniuses, we miss a much more diverse and global story. We also give the impression that science is separate from history, that it develops independently of wider world events. In fact, science is just as much a part of world history as art, religion, culture, and politics. Copernicus may have been a genius, but he was far from isolated. He wrote at a time when Europe was forging new connections with Asia, with caravans travelling along the Silk Road and galleons crossing the Indian Ocean.

Christian, Jewish and Islamic thinkers

Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, many Byzantines fled west, often to Italy, where Copernicus studied in the late 1400s. They brought with them Arabic, Persian, Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, many of which are now housed in the Vatican Library in Rome, where Copernicus stayed during a pilgrimage in 1500. Other scientific works arrived in the trunks of Ottoman envoys and Venetian traders. It was this wider world of cultural exchange that fuelled the scientific revolution.

In On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Copernicus drew together theories and observations from Christian, Jewish and Islamic thinkers. He cited five Muslim scholars, including the Iberian astronomer Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji and the Arab mathe matician Al-Battani. Copernicus also borrowed most of his astronomical data from the Alfonsine Tables. First published in 1483, these allowed astronomers to predict the timing of important events such as an eclipse or the start of Easter or Ramadan. The tables were based on an earlier set of Arabic data, and had been compiled by Jewish astronomers working at the court of King Alfonso X of Castile and León.

Most significantly, Copernicus deployed a complex mathematical technique first developed by the 13th-century Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Referred to as the “Tusi couple”, the technique allowed Copernicus to model the complex movement of the planets. He even traced out an exact copy of Tusi’s diagram into On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Without it, Copernicus would not have been able to put the Sun at the centre of the universe.

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The idea that modern science was invented in Europe is a remarkably recent one. Such a claim would not have made sense to someone like Copernicus, who lived through the scientific revolution of the 16th century. In fact, it was only in the 20th century, and particularly the Cold War, that historians in Europe and the United States started to promote the idea that modern science had western origins. This served as a convenient fiction, suggesting that the west had always been at the forefront of scientific progress. But a fiction was all it was.

The reality is that the birth of modern science is a global story. To get a sense of why, I am going to examine the achievements of three great thinkers from around the world. It’s a journey that will take in the Spanish conquest of 16th-century Mexico, the transatlantic slave trade and the astronomical observatories of 18th-century India.

Martín de la Cruz: the Aztec doctor who made medicine from New World plants

One night in 1552, while working away by candlelight on the outskirts of Mexico City, an Aztec doctor called Martín de la Cruz traced the outline of a flower he had collected earlier that day. Next to it, he drew a prickly pear, complete with pink blossom. And underneath the two images, he wrote a few lines in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, explaining how to prepare different medicines from each plant. “An inflamed part of the body will be relieved by a liquor from the nohpalli [prickly pear],” explained Cruz.

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Unfortunately, we do not know Cruz’s original Nahuatl name. But we do know that he had been born in the Aztec empire in the early 16th century, prior to the Spanish conquest of its capital, Tenochtitlán, in 1521. In his previous life, Cruz had trained as a doctor under the Aztecs, developing an incredible knowledge of the healing properties of Mexican plants, and their classification. By the 1550s, Cruz was working for the Spanish at the Royal College of Santa Cruz. This was the first European institution of higher learning in the Americas.

And it was here that Cruz completed his masterwork, known in English as The Little Book of the Medicinal Herbs of the Indians (1552). This is another fantastic example of the way in which modern science was produced through global cultural exchange. In this book, Cruz documented the medicinal properties of hundreds of New World plants, which Europeans knew nothing about prior to the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. In doing so, Cruz combined his knowledge of Aztec and European classificatory systems to produce an entirely new work of natural history.

Cruz documented the medicinal properties of hundreds of New World plants, which Europeans knew nothing about prior to the Spanish colonisation of the Americas

Today, we know that many of the plants that Cruz and other Aztec doctors identified do have pharmacologically active chemicals. They were probably reasonably effective. European naturalists were keen to learn whatever they could from the Aztecs, even if they rarely acknowledged it. Cruz’s Little Book soon found its way into private libraries in Spain and Italy, where it was consulted by leading European scientific thinkers. Yes, there was an explosion of knowledge about the natural world in 16th-century Europe. But that knowledge was often reliant on Aztec scientific thinkers such as Martín de la Cruz.

Graman Kwasi: the slave who discovered a treatment for malaria

Two centuries later, another man made an astonishing scientific breakthrough in the Americas. His name was Graman Kwasi, and he was one of the millions of enslaved Africans transported across the Atlantic during the 18th century. Kwasi was born around 1690 in west Africa, in what is today part of modern Ghana. Aged 10, he was captured by African slave traders, sold to a Dutch captain and transported to the South American colony of Surinam, where he was forced to work on a sugar plantation.

That would have been his life, had it not been for a chance discovery. Over the years, Kwasi developed an intimate knowledge of the flora of South America. He collected specimens from the edge of the plantation, and he discussed medical remedies with indigenous Amerindians, some of whom were also enslaved.

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One day, Kwasi came across a plant that would change his life. He soon learned that the bark of this plant, when boiled to make a tea, acted as an effective treatment for malaria. At the time, the only other known treatment for malaria was the bark of the cinchona tree, known as “Peruvian bark”. This incredibly valuable commodity was literally worth more than its weight in gold in the 18th century. Kwasi’s discovery was not only of great scientific importance, but offered huge economic benefits, too.

A few years later, the most famous European naturalist of the 18th century learned about Kwasi’s discovery. Carl Linnaeus – inventor of the modern system of plant classification – received a specimen from Surinam. Recognising its significance, Linnaeus named it after Kwasi, giving the plant the Latin name Quassia amara, by which it is still known today. (Quassia is the Latinised version of Kwasi’s name. Amara means bitter in Latin, as the medicinal tea had a bitter taste.)

Kwasi came across a plant the bark of which, when boiled to make a tea, acted as an effective treatment for malaria

This was Kwasi’s ticket to freedom. Kwasi was set free, and given his own small plantation in Surinam, as well as his own enslaved labourers to work it. From there on, Kwasi set himself up as a botanical expert, receiving letters from European naturalists who addressed him as a “Professor of Herbology”.

We have in Graman Kwasi a reminder that global cultural exchange could be violent and forced. Kwasi brought together knowledge of west African, Amerindian, and European natural history, and in doing so he developed a new treatment for malaria. This, however, was all a product of the violence of the transatlantic slave trade. Kwasi is a rare example of an African botanical pioneer who was acknowledged as an expert by Europeans.

But millions of other African and Caribbean people also possessed sophisticated botanical and medical knowledge: individuals such as Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse who treated soldiers in the Crimean War, and John Edmonstone, the former slave who taught the young Charles Darwin the art of taxidermy. This was rarely acknowledged at the time, or even today.

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African botanical knowledge was often taken, without credit, by European naturalists. If we look carefully, we can see the traces of the knowledge of enslaved people in major works of natural history of the 18th century, in the writings of leading European Enlightenment figures such as Carl Linnaeus.

Jai Singh II: the Indian prince who built universe-changing observatories

That same century, on the banks of the Ganges, people came to burn the dead. Funeral pyres lit up the night sky in Varanasi, the sacred city of the Hindus. But high above the river, an Indian prince was staring at the heavens. Fabulously wealthy and raised to rule, Maharaja Jai Singh II’s life was as far removed from those of the millions of enslaved Africans as it is possible to imagine. But that didn’t stop his work also being omitted from western histories.

Jai Singh II was born at the end of the 17th century in western India. At the age of 11, he became ruler of the kingdom of Amber, in what is now Jaipur, western India. An accomplished mathematician and architect, he was responsible for building an advanced network of astronomical observatories across northern India (seen in the top image). Constructed between 1724 and 1735, they were located in cities of great political and religious significance, such as Varanasi, Delhi, and Jaipur.

An accomplished mathematician and architect, Jai Singh II was responsible for building an advanced network of astronomical observatories across northern India

“In the east, the south, the west, and the north, everywhere observations are to be made,” he declared. At each observatory, Jai Singh designed and installed a bespoke set of scientific instruments. These were incredibly accurate, in part due to their size. The Samrat Yantra, or “Supreme Instrument”, at the Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur is more than 27 metres tall, giving the local time to the nearest two seconds.

Using these instruments, Jai Singh compiled one of the most accurate sets of astronomical tables in the world at the time, The Tables of Muhammad Shah (c1732), in honour of the Mughal emperor. Jai Singh is another great example of how the scientific revolution relied on global cultural exchange. He sought out knowledge wherever he could find it, sending an embassy to Portugal, which returned with the Scottish polymath John Napier’s work on logarithmic tables.

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He also purchased a work on Chinese astronomy by a Jesuit astronomer, and he combined existing Islamic and Hindu mathematical sciences, publishing his astronomical tables in Persian and Sanskrit. Evidence of that cultural exchange is still visible in the fabric of the buildings at the Jantar Mantar today. The stone instruments at each site are engraved with both Arabic and Sanskrit numerals, so that they could be used by Muslim and Hindu astronomers.

This is another important reminder that modern science in India, as elsewhere, has always relied on bringing together different peoples and cultures. It’s for that very reason that we need a new history of science – a history that stretches well beyond the traditional story of the scientific revolution in early modern Europe. Science today is clearly a global enterprise. But this is a tradition that goes back much further than we often think.

James Poskett is associate professor in the history of science and technology at the University of Warwick, and author of Horizons: A Global History of Science (Viking, 2022)

This article was first published in the October 2022 issue of BBC History Magazine