{"product_id":"william-harvey-a-life-in-circulation","title":"William Harvey: A Life in Circulation","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1628  the English physician William Harvey published his revolutionary theory of blood circulation. Offering a radical conception of the workings of the human body and the function of the heart  Harveys theory overthrew centuries of anatomical and physiological orthodoxy and had profound consequences for the history of science. It also had an enormous impact on culture more generally  influencing economists  poets and political thinkers  for whom the theory triumphed not as empirical fact but as a remarkable philosophical idea.  In the first major biographical study of Harvey in 50 years  Thomas Wright charts the meteoric rise of a yeomans son to the elevated position of King Charles Is physician  taking the reader from farmlands of Kent to Englands royal palaces  and paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary mind formed at a fertile time in Englands intellectual history. Set in late Renaissance London  the book features an illustrious cast of historical characters  from Francis Bacon and John Donne to Robert Fludd  whose corroboration of Harveys ideas helped launch his circulation theory. After he published his discoveries  Harvey became famous throughout Europe  where he demonstrated his theory through public vivisections. Although his ideas met with vociferous opposition  they eventually triumphed and Harvey became renowned as the only man in the history of natural philosophy to live to see a revolutionary theory gain wide currency. But just as intellectual ideas could be toppled  so too could kings. When Charles I was overthrown during the Civil War of the 1640s  his loyal court physician fell also  and Harvey  an unrepentant Royalist  was banished from London under the English Republic. He died in the late 1650s  a gout-ridden  melancholy man  uncertain of his achievement.  A victim of the political turmoil of the times  William Harvey was nevertheless the mainspring of vast historical changes in anatomy and physiology. Wrights biography skillfully repositions Harvey as a man who embodied the intellectual and cultural spirit of his age  and launched a revolution that would continue to run its course long after his death.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44964439261237,"sku":"ByrdShop_0199931690","price":40.37,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780199931699.jpg?v=1770461229","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/william-harvey-a-life-in-circulation","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}