From ‘Natural Magic’ to ‘Scientific Naturalism’: Basic Readings

From ‘Natural Magic’ to ‘Scientific Naturalism’: Basic Readings

Has science vanquished magic? While many prominent popularizers of science think so, professional history of science scholarship suggests otherwise. Here is a short list of basic and introductory readings for those who want to study the complex historical relationship of the sciences with magic for themselves.

For the sake of brevity and with a broad audience in mind, the below list of titles is limited to books, omitting journal articles and chapters in edited volumes (and omitting valuable titles in languages other than English). Unfortunately for readers without an academic affiliation, scholarly articles are usually hidden behind paywalls – however, authors occasionally upload PDF files of their works on Academia.edu or ResearchGate, or on their institutional websites, so a web search is always worth a shot.

The following short list of books is deliberately basic and introductory, and necessarily selective and incomplete. In my view, however, most of these titles are required reading for anybody who wants to understand the complexities of historical and ongoing interactions between science and magic.