"[The book] simultaneously narrates and performs a new epistemological approach and, at least implicitly, a new pedagogy that can more richly address nonverbal knowledge about nature and its materials, which play such a central role in Smith’s thinking. . . . From Lived Experience reproduces the caesuras seen between the remarkable crafts products and the equally remarkable texts by practitioner-authors that were at the center of the book’s first three sections. . . . The positive lesson, though, is that engaged and insightful scholarship can convey the richness and coherence of this knowledge and its significance for larger processes of cultural and epistemic change. To gain these lessons while being awed and amazed by the skill, the imagination, and the tenacity of [Smith's] subjects, who braved not only evil smoke but all the disruptions that tore apart early modern Europe while creating remarkable and beautiful things, is a gift."


 

West 86th

"Smith’s study encompasses the period from 1400 to 1800, when practitioners increasingly sought to put their trades in words, composing and publishing craft manuals, guides, treatises, recipe books, tip sheets and diagrams... These texts, she argues, enrich our understanding of the theoretical world of European makers, the development of technical writing and, by extension, the birth of modern science."

London Review of Books

"Focused on ground zero of the scientific revolution—early modern Europe—Smith seeks to 'jolt' us into reassessing our basic categories of knowledge . . . In place of aristocratic gentlemen, Smith centers skilled craftspeople: carpenters, metalworkers, painters, masons, sailors, engineers, and painters. These people worked with their hands, but Smith argues that they did a lot more: they philosophized with their hands, and in doing so taught the world an 'artisanal epistemology' that valued experience, observation, experiment, and manipulation. Their distinctive form of knowing was taken up by natural philosophers at the end of the seventeenth century and turned into what we now call modern science, she argues, but its artisan lineage was also erased in the new narratives of scientific revolution. Smith seeks to recover the artisan worldview on its own terms."

Boston Review

"There are books which close the discussion by offering the final world, and others which open fields by drastically altering the terms of discussion. From Lived Experience to the Written Word Is a perfectly crafted book belonging to the latter category."

Ambix

"Building from her research and years of hands-on experiences, science historian Pamela H. Smith’s latest title. . . confirms intersections between materials, craft, technique, and developing scientific expertise in early modern European workshops. . . So, if you ever soften some wax to create your special scented candles or take a shot at melting metals to make ornaments and vessels, consider recording the entire creation experience. Ways of making lead toward knowing and may end up serving intelligibly, for posterity."

Hyperallergic

"Smith’s book is a generous invitation to explore the marvelous and surprising territory that is shared by the history of science and art history. It convincingly historicizes experiential knowledge of early modern practitioners and shows the way for other historians to do the same. Moreover, it presents a particularly strong argument for reclaiming 'art' or kunst, not as synonyms for 'fine' art, but as terms denoting the human ability and knowledge to transform and manipulate materials and nature. Aided by many full-color plates, this highly recommended book surely succeeds in resurrecting the lived artisanal experience from the past."

Isis

"In scholarship, it is a matter of course to interrogate the nature of a text by reading it. Reconstruction lets us explore the nature of practice by doing it. Smith’s book is all the more valuable for engaging with both."

British Journal for the History of Science

“This book is a cogently original account of skilled practice, its expression in writing, and its significance for the culture of knowledge as the new sciences developed in early modern Europe. With roots in the world-renowned Making and Knowing Project, it offers an important addition to the histories of skilled craft practice, of science and technology, and of the premodern and early modern periods.”

Pamela O. Long, author of Engineering the Eternal City

“This is a brilliant, groundbreaking, and timely book. Through a particularly novel and exciting approach, Smith offers the first book-length study on the way early modern practitioners wrote about their skills. It is a must read for the growing community of scholars interested in material culture and in the ways how bodies, minds, things, and materials interact with each other.”

Christine Göttler, author of Last Things