The European expansion around the globe, which began in the sixteenth century, carried with it new conceptions of knowledge itself. Francis Bacon famously asserted that 'knowledge is power' this book attempts to go beneath the oft quoted slogan to see the various ways in which this conviction played itself out in shaping new perceptions of what natural knowledge was, and what it was good for, in this crucial period. Peter Dear covers the key figures of the period, including Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler and Newton and the important schools of thought to create a picture of the development of scientific thought in early modern Europe. The book is accessible to an undergraduate and lay readership, while drawing on recent scholarship to provide an understanding of the cultural foundations of the modern scientific project.