{"title":"David Wootton","description":"\u003cp\u003eDavid Wootton's works explore the intricate intersections of history, politics, and society with a sharp analytical lens. His books often delve into the lives of pivotal figures and the forces that shaped modern thought and governance, offering readers a richly detailed perspective on historical and contemporary power dynamics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith titles that balance biography and the study of ideas, Wootton invites readers to consider how passion, profit, and authority have influenced the course of civilisation. His writing engages both the intellect and the curiosity of those interested in the deeper currents of political and cultural change.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"galileo-by-david-wootton-9780300197297","title":"Galileo","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA provocative and penetrating new life of Galileo, placing the man, his achievements, and his failures in the broader history of the Scientific Revolution\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGalileo\u003c\/em\u003e (1564–1642) is one of the most important and controversial figures in the history of science. A hero of modern science and key to its birth, he was also a deeply divided man: a scholar committed to the establishment of scientific truth yet forced to concede the importance of faith, and a brilliant analyst of the elegantly mathematical workings of nature yet bungling and insensitive with his own family.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the centre of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a “new physics”; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Wootton reveals much that is new—from Galileo’s premature Copernicanism to a previously unrecognised illegitimate daughter—and, controversially, rejects the long-established orthodoxy which holds that Galileo was a good Catholic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAbsolutely central to Galileo’s significance—and to science more broadly—is the telescope, the potential of which Galileo was the first to grasp. Wootton makes clear that it totally revolutionised and galvanised scientific endeavour to discover new and previously unimagined facts. Drawing extensively on Galileo’s voluminous letters, many of which were self-censored and sly, this is an original, arresting, and highly readable biography of a difficult, remarkable Renaissance genius.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46855776764140,"sku":"9780300197297","price":40.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26f1e4a388f5912d15745b9c25e2a435.jpg?v=1759277778"},{"product_id":"power-pleasure-and-profit-by-david-wootton-9780674976672","title":"Power, Pleasure, and Profit","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA provocative history of the changing values that have given rise to our present discontents.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe pursue power, pleasure, and profit. We want as much as we can get, and we deploy instrumental reasoning—cost-benefit analysis—to get it. We judge ourselves and others by how well we succeed. It is a way of life and thought that seems natural, inevitable, and inescapable. As David Wootton shows, it is anything but.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003ePower, Pleasure, and Profit\u003c\/em\u003e, he traces an intellectual and cultural revolution that replaced the older systems of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality with the iron cage of instrumental reasoning that now gives shape and purpose to our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWootton guides us through four centuries of Western thought—from Machiavelli to Madison—to show how new ideas about politics, ethics, and economics stepped into a gap opened up by religious conflict and the Scientific Revolution. As ideas about godliness and Aristotelian virtue faded, theories about the rational pursuit of power, pleasure, and profit moved to the fore in the work of writers both obscure and as famous as Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith. The new instrumental reasoning cut through old codes of status and rank, enabling the emergence of movements for liberty and equality. But it also helped to create a world in which virtue, honour, shame, and guilt count for almost nothing, and what matters is success.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIs our world better for the rise of instrumental reasoning? To answer that question, Wootton writes, we must first recognise that we live in its grip.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47464164458732,"sku":"9780674976672","price":71.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780674976672-power-pleasure-and-profit.jpg?v=1775039164"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/david-wootton.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}