A fascinating approach to the history of science which also involves the history of philosophy, political thought, religion and the political developments of the time.
So often history of science can become a triumphalist account of how right conquered. The authors here - step by step - tease out all the contemporary elements of a particular moment in the history of science, mostly concentrating on the dispute between Boyle and Hobbes over the value of Boyle's air pump and the justification of assumptions based on it. It is a dense text (every element is referenced and analysed) and clearly shows how contemporary Boyle's (and the Royal Society) ideas were. He was not a modern 'scientist' with modern assumptions. How the experimental approach related to Aristotelianism and Platonism; how it could be (and was) seen to relate to current religious and political issues; how it could be seen as subverting the social order or reinforcing it.
In the end you are drenched in the ideas, presumptions and prejudices of the time while still being able to overview it all. Brilliant.