Okay, we're live. Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates. On today's show, I have a very special guest. His name is James Hannam, and he published a book in the UK in 2009. The title of the book in the UK is God's Philosophers, How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. And in the U.S., the title was changed, and it is the genesis of science, how the Christian Middle Ages launched the scientific revolution. So it's the same content, two different books. The one in England had a review from Boris Johnson, who is the current Prime Minister,

who wrote, and this is from the cover of the book, quote, wonderful, with an engaging

fervor, James Hannan has said about, Hannam has set about to rescuing the reputation of a bunch

of half-forgotten thinkers, and he shows how they paved the way for modern science.

So again in the U.S., it's the genesis of science is the title of the book.

But he can talk more about that, about some of these interesting sensibilities that we have about the dark ages.

And I think that he convincingly shows that a lot more was going on during

the so-called Dark Ages than we know generally today.

So James, Hannam, are you there?

Well, thank you very much for having me on your show.

It's great to be here.

I wrote the book, God's Philosophersers because I wanted to rescue the reputation of the

Middle Ages as being a period of stagnation when there was no science, when the church was this

overbearing force which was stifling any kind of inquiry, because I think that's a completely wrong impression of what the

Middle Ages were, were actually like, I think there were a very vibrant, interesting period where

there was all sorts of very exciting intellectual work going on. In particular, in my own

area of interest, medieval science, I think was really an important factor

in the period after the Middle Ages,

which we nowadays tend to call the scientific revolution.

I can't see how the scientific revolution could have happened

had it not been for the foundations of science

that were laid in the Middle Ages.

...