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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Francis Bacon : History Politics And Science 1561-1626 by Brian Harvey Goodwin Wormald
In the centuries since his death, Francis Bacon has been perceived as a promoter and prophet of natural science. Certainly Bacon expected to fill the vacuum which he saw existing in the study of nature; but he also saw himself as a clarifier and promoter of what he called policy, that is, the study and improvement of the structure and function of civil states including the then new British state. In this major study, Brian Wormalds first since his work on Clarendon, Bacon is shown resolving this conflict by attending assiduously to both fields, arguing that work on one would help progress in the other. In his teaching, in his practice and in terms of what was actually achieved, the junction between the two enterprises was affected by Bacons work in history - civil and natural. In this fundamental reappraisal of one of the most complex and innovative figures of the age, Brian Wormald reveals how Bacons conception and practice of history provided an answer to his strivings in both policy and natural philosophy.show more