Objects, Practices, Techniques, and Texts: The Movement of Knowledge in the Early Modern World

The early modern period saw increased commerce, production, and consumption throughout the world, and, as goods traveled, knowledge moved. Recent history of science, which has viewed the history of early modern science through the lens of commerce, has made clear how much knowledge about natural materials and products depended upon local informants, not just in the Americas, South Asia, and China, but also in Europe. This paper argues that the global and epistemic movement of knowledge was crucial to the transformations in worldview and attitudes to nature that have come to typify the early modern period.