"Buchwald and Feingold's remarkable book traces the development of Newton's thought from his earliest manuscripts up to his 1687 masterpiece, the Principia . The book reveals striking new features of Newton's evolution, such as his initial focus on the humanities as a student at Grantham and at Cambridge. At the same time, it provides a fascinating road map of his maturing mathematics and physics, and terminates with a probing look at Newton's experimental practice over multiple fields. It is a work to which one will return again and again for fresh insights, in short, a classic." --William Newman, Indiana University "This innovative study offers a completely new picture of Newton's intellectual development prior to the writing of the Principia and will be of immense interest to Newtonian scholarship." --Niccolò Guicciardini, author of Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy "Almost three and a half centuries after its publication, the genesis and composition of Newton's Principia --perhaps the most famous scientific book ever written--remains shrouded in mystery. In The Winding Trail to Newton's "Principia Mathematica," we are fortunate to be presented with an account of this enigmatic period in Newton's career that is as sensitive to the needs of a properly historical explanation as it is to the intricacies of Newton's science. It will be of interest not only to historians, but also to anyone curious about how the messy business of intellectual innovation really happens.

" --Dmitri Levitin, University of Oxford, author of The Kingdom of Darkness: Bayle, Newton, and the Emancipation of the European Mind from Philosophy.