During the first period of globalization medical ideas and practices originating in China became entangled in the medical activities of other places, sometimes at long distances. They produced effects through processes of alteration once known as translatio, meaning movements in place, status, and meaning.
Read Article
Program in Early Cultures
Harold Cook
John F. Nickoll Professor of History
Research Interests
History of Medicine, Science, Knowledge Practices
Biography
Hal Cook comes from the American Midwest, although he is now a British as well as US citizen, having devoted almost a decade to his work as Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. He previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University, and has served the communities of the history of medicine and science, as well as history in general, through various professional society committees and editorial work. He takes an interest in global history, science and capitalism, and the history of medicine, especially in the early modern period; his research has been mostly on the 17th century, in recent years focusing on the relationships between commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch Golden Age. A book on The Young Descartes: Nobility, Rumor, and War, has recently appeared with the University of Chicago Press. He has held several fellowships and has been the recipient of a number of honors and awards, including two book prizes: the Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine (1997) and the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society (2009).
Recent News
The University of Chicago Press
The Young Descartes: Nobility, Rumor, and War (Chicago, 2018)
In The Young Descartes, Professor Harold J. Cook tells the story of a man who did not set out to become an author or philosopher—René Descartes began publishing only after the age of forty.
Read Article