An Age of Wonders - Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England 1657-1727 (Hardcover)

Monstrous births, rains of blood, apparitions of battles in the sky - people in early modern England found all of these events to carry important religious and political meanings. This work explores the process by which these events became religiously and politically insignificant in the Restoration period, and discusses the establishment of early modern science, the shift from "enthusiastic" to reasonable religion, and the fierce political combat between the Whigs and the Tories. As a study of Restoration politics this study fully brings to bear the insights of the new social history of science, and is based on close readings of a variety of primary sources, both in print and in manuscript form.