Michael Cyril William Hunter FBA FRHistS (born 1949) is emeritus professor of history in the department of history, classics and archaeology[2] and a fellow[1] of Birkbeck, University of London. Hunter is interested in the culture of early modern England. He specialises in the history of science in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England, particularly the work of Robert Boyle.[2] In Noel Malcolm's judgement, Hunter "has done more for Boyle studies than anyone before him (or, one might almost say, than all previous Boyle scholars put together)".[3]
Michael Hunter | |
|---|---|
 Michael Hunter at the Neville Awards in 2009 | |
| Born | Michael Cyril William Hunter 1949 (age 74–75) |
| Alma mater | Jesus College, Cambridge, Worcester College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Employer | Birkbeck, University of London |
| Parent(s) | Frank and Olive Hunter |
| Awards | Roy G. Neville Prize |
Education
editHunter read history at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, England from 1968 to 1972. He then attended Worcester College, Oxford, where he received a DPhil.[1]
Career
editAfter a brief stay at the University of Reading Hunter joined Birkbeck, University of London in 1976.[1]
Hunter's first monograph focused on the English antiquary and natural philosopher John Aubrey.[4] Since then he has written extensively on the history of science and intellectual thought in England during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in particular the Royal Society.[5]
His most substantial scholarly achievement is his edition of Boyle's Works (with Edward Davis, 14 vols, 1999–2000)[6] and Correspondence (with Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence Principe, 6 vols, 2001).[6]
From 2006 to 2009 Hunter directed the creation of a digital library focusing on British printed images before 1700.[2]
He received the 2011 Roy G. Neville Prize from the Chemical Heritage Foundation for his biographical work Boyle: Between God and Science.[7] He also received the 2011 Robert Latham medal from the Samuel Pepys Club.[8][9] In his honour, when he retired in 2013, the Birkbeck Early Modern Society held a conference on "Science, Magic and Religion in the Early Modern Period".[2]
Hunter has been a wary defender of his turf, with scholars Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer observing he has been "consistently hostile" to their more recent work on Robert Boyle.[10]
Personal life
editHunter is a motorcycle enthusiast who likes two-stroke racing bikes.[2] He lives in Hastings, East Sussex.[1]
Works
editOther academic books include:
- John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning. London: Duckworth, 1975. ISBN 978-0-71560-818-0
- Science and Society in Restoration England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-521-22866-2[11]
- The Royal Society and Its Fellows, 1660–1700: The Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution. BSHS monographs, 4. Chalfont St. Giles: British Society for the History of Science, 1982. ISBN 9780906450031
- Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-85115-506-7
- (with David Wootton). Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. ISBN 978-0-19-822736-6
- Robert Boyle Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 9780521442053
- Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy: Intellectual Change in Late Seventeenth-Century Britain. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0-85115-594-4
- Robert Boyle (1627–91): Scrupulosity and Science. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-85115-798-6[6]
- The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science, and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001. ISBN 978-1-4175-7606-7
- (with Edward Bradford Davis). The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert Boyle. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. ISBN 9780754655688
- Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 978-0-230-00807-6
- Boyle : between God and Science, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-12381-4
- The Image of Restoration Science : The Frontispiece to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society (1667). London: Routledge, 2016. ISBN 978-1-317-02787-4
- The Decline of Magic. London: Yale University Press, 2020 ISBN 978-0-300-24358-1
References
edit- ^ a b c d e "Michael Hunter, College oration" (PDF). Birkbeck College. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d e "Professor Michael Hunter". Birkbeck, University of London. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ Noel Malcolm, 'Of Air and Alchemy', Times Literary Supplement, 22 August 2002
- ^ Hunter, Michael (1975). John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning. New York: Science History Publications. ISBN 978-0-88202-039-6.
- ^ "Chemical Heritage Foundation to Present Roy G. Neville Prize to Michael Hunter". Chemical Heritage Foundation. Archived from the original on 12 July 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ a b c Reviewed by Roy Porter, 'To Justify the Works of Boyle to Man' Archived 2007-07-02 at the Wayback Machine, History of Science 39 (2001), pp. 241-48
- ^ "Roy G. Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography". Science History Institute. 5 July 2016. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
- ^ Allen, Katie (26 October 2011). "Samuel Pepys Award to Michael Hunter". The Bookseller. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ "The Robert Latham medal". Samuel Pepys Club. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ Shapin, Steven; Schaffer, Simon (2011). Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. xxxvi. ISBN 978-1-4008-3849-3. OCLC 759907750.
- ^ Thorson, James L.; Hunter, Michael (1983). "Science and Society in Restoration England". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 17 (2): 214. doi:10.2307/2738292. JSTOR 2738292.