The BioLogos Forum: James Hannam
James Hannam took a Physics degree at Oxford before training as an accountant. He enjoyed a successful career in the City, mainly financing film production, but harboured ambitions to write about the history of science. In 2001, he started a part time MA at Birkbeck College, London in Historical Research. The experience only served to further whet his appetite for the subject. In 2003, he was accepted at Cambridge to do a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science. His thesis on the decline of medieval learning during the sixteenth century was completed in 2008. In the meantime, he also worked on his book for the general reader, "God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundation of Modern Science" which was published by Icon in 2009. It is published in the US as "The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution". The book was shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books in 2010. James has also written for various magazines and newspapers including the Spectator, History Today, Standpoint and New Scientist. He lives in Kent, England with his wife and two children.
Posts by Hannam
Rediscovering the Science of the Middle Ages
October 4, 2011
Most people still assume that the Middle Ages were a period entirely benighted by violence, superstition and stagnation. Indeed, the triumphs of Greek reason and mathematics had allegedly been snuffed out by Christians once the Roman Empire abandoned paganism in the fourth century AD. Echoing the enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon, some commentators today even blame Christianity for causing the "Dark Ages".
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