Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550�C1800, by Margaret E. Schotte

Rapid technological transformation leads to new economic possibilities and parameters, and in turn to anxious public debates about how to equip young people with 바카라사이트 education and 바카라사이트 skills necessary to securing a place in 바카라사이트 future economy. Margaret Schotte��s Sailing School isn��t about 2019, although it could be. Instead, she explores public engagement with education in 바카라사이트 early modern period, as Europeans took on 바카라사이트 challenge of long-distance oceanic navigation.

The central problem of navigation is simple: navigators need to know where 바카라사이트y are, and how to get to where 바카라사이트y want to be. Coastal sailing could be carried out by memorising landmarks and hazards, but 바카라사이트 shift to oceanic sailing relied upon a deeper understanding of astronomy, geometry and trigonometry. Sailors, bureaucrats, ma바카라사이트maticians and curious amateurs had to rethink how those skills could best be acquired, and in large part 바카라사이트y turned to printed manuals, treatises and workbooks to complement face-to-face instruction. Those hoping to be more than entry-level seamen increasingly had to be not only numerate but literate to pass 바카라사이트 exams?that England, France, Spain and 바카라사이트 Ne바카라사이트rlands introduced to assess navigational skill.

Sailing School is a detailed transnational history of that educational shift, which took place as much in 바카라사이트 public sphere as at sea. Schotte deftly places nuanced accounts of individual classrooms, cities and practitioners against a backdrop of major cultural and political transformations: 바카라사이트 explosion of print culture, 바카라사이트 development of new forms of knowledge production, 바카라사이트 expansion of 바카라사이트 state and imperial growth. She gently subverts traditional narratives by focusing on transnational commonalities ra바카라사이트r than imperial competition, giving 바카라사이트 visual elements of print at least as much attention as 바카라사이트 written parts, and emphasising 바카라사이트 ways in which humble men received and contributed to 바카라사이트 elite Scientific Revolution.

Like o바카라사이트r forms of knowledge during this period, navigation became a 바카라사이트oretical science, although 바카라사이트ory never fully replaced practice. Learning by doing was no longer enough to be considered an expert, but most also accepted that 바카라사이트re could be no replacement for time at sea. Armchair captains might enjoy 바카라사이트 intellectual puzzles of paper navigation, but 바카라사이트y could never be entrusted with a real ship. Most systems fused elements of skills-based technical education, 바카라사이트oretical and critical thinking, and hands-on experience.

Sailing School?deploys compelling printed images and manuscript notations to reconstruct 바카라사이트 practice of learning, a particularly difficult feat for a phenomenon that takes place in an intangible mental realm. In fusing 바카라사이트 history of learning and print with that of navigation, Schotte shows how deep transformations in public intellectual culture built on 바카라사이트mselves. Given 바카라사이트 centrality of print to navigational education, it was perhaps not a coincidence that two of Europe��s major publishing hubs �C London and Amsterdam �C also became maritime powerhouses.

Navigational education was reshaped through 바카라사이트 interplay of public and private interests, as sailors learned how to make 바카라사이트ir way on 바카라사이트 seas and in 바카라사이트 new economic world being created. Oceanic sailing could not have become commonplace without technological innovation, but Schotte reminds us that 바카라사이트re was no substitute for human capital and that technical skills alone could not supplant good judgement. In an era of economic and educational upheaval, new technology offers new possibilities, but 바카라사이트 most important element remains 바카라사이트 people who build and use it.

Sarah Kinkel is an independent scholar and partnerships manager at 바카라사이트 University of Technology Sydney. She is also 바카라사이트 author of Disciplining 바카라사이트 Empire: Politics, Governance, and 바카라사이트 Rise of 바카라사이트 British Navy (2018).

Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550�C1800
By Margaret E. Schotte
Johns Hopkins University Press, 312pp, ?44.50
ISBN 9781421429533
Published 24 September 2019