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Eric H. Ash, Pamela O. Long. Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400–1600., The American Historical Review, Volume 118, Issue 3, June 2013, Pages 920–921, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/118.3.920
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Extract
The relative roles of the “scholar” and the “craftsman” in making the new scientific discoveries and promoting the new methods of investigation that characterize what Pamela O. Long has called the “new science” have long been a matter for historiographical debate. Long's latest book not only offers a timely review of this ongoing discussion, it also begins to make an important contribution to it. She argues, among other things, that the very terms “scholar” and “craftsman” have artificially limited historians' perceptions of what was really a much more fluid and dynamic interaction between those with book learning and those with technical skills. In our modern, highly disciplinary mindset, we have been somewhat blind to the fact that medieval and early modern individuals with learning and skill often communicated so closely as to share their abilities with one another, sometimes blurring the distinction between them so much as to erase it entirely.
