Today Boyle is considered the forefather of the experimental method, and Hobbes a titan of political philosophy. This is an artifact of history, as the two were contemporaries and competitors in that strange space called 'Natural Philosophy.' One of the most important books in the history of science and in STS, Leviathan and the Air-Pump looks at the early days of the Royal Society as a constitutional moment. In the controversy over the air experiments, the integrity of the machine, the nature of the substances contained within, and the practices of witnessing used to attest to its results, Shapin and Schaffer find the start of both science and liberalism.

This is an immense and deeply researched work of scholarship, that vividly imagines the politics and practices of the time; a very difference world where technological dissension could imply the chaos of civil war, and the idea of perfect philosophical system was still attainable. My only quibbles are that this book is denser than the subject warrants, and despite protestations to the contrary, has just the small whiff of whiggishness, as the authors are descendants of Boyle's cultural tradition rather than Hobbes, and Boyle is described as 'speaking for nature' whereas Hobbes is merely 'social'.