Michael Hunter (historian) explained

Michael Hunter
Birth Name:	Michael Cyril William Hunter
Birth Place:	Harting, West Sussex
Employer:	Birkbeck, University of London
Alma Mater:	Jesus College, Cambridge, Worcester College, Oxford
Occupation:	Historian
Parents:	Frank and Olive Hunter
Awards:	Roy G. Neville Prize

Michael Cyril William Hunter (born 1949) is emeritus professor of history in the department of history, classics and archaeology and a fellow of Birkbeck, University of London. Hunter is interested in the culture of early modern England. He specialises in the history of science in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England, particularly the work of Robert Boyle.^[1] In Noel Malcolm's judgement, Hunter "has done more for Boyle studies than anyone before him (or, one might almost say, than all previous Boyle scholars put together)".^[2]

Education

Hunter read history at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, England from 1968 to 1972. He then attended Worcester College, Oxford, where he received a DPhil.

Career

After a brief stay at the University of Reading Hunter joined Birkbeck, University of London in 1976.

Hunter's first monograph focused on the English antiquary and natural philosopher John Aubrey.^[3] Since then he has written extensively on the history of science and intellectual thought in England during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in particular the Royal Society.^[4]

His most substantial scholarly achievement is his edition of Boyle's Works (with Edward Davis, 14 vols, 1999–2000)^[5] and Correspondence (with Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence Principe, 6 vols, 2001).^[5]

From 2006 to 2009 Hunter directed the creation of a digital library focusing on British printed images before 1700.^[1]

He received the 2011 Roy G. Neville Prize from the Chemical Heritage Foundation for his biographical work Boyle: Between God and Science.^[6] He also received the 2011 Robert Latham medal from the Samuel Pepys Club.^{[7] [8]} In his honour, when he retired in 2013, the Birkbeck Early Modern Society held a conference on "Science, Magic and Religion in the Early Modern Period".^[1]

Hunter has been a wary defender of his turf, with scholars Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer observing he has been "consistently hostile" to their more recent work on Robert Boyle.^[9]

Personal life

Hunter is a motorcycle enthusiast who likes two-stroke racing bikes.^[1] He lives in Hastings, East Sussex.^[10]

Works

Other academic books include:

• John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning. London: Duckworth, 1975.
• Science and Society in Restoration England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. ^[11]
• The Royal Society and Its Fellows, 1660–1700: The Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution. BSHS monographs, 4. Chalfont St. Giles: British Society for the History of Science, 1982.
• Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989.
• (with David Wootton). Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
• Robert Boyle Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
• Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy: Intellectual Change in Late Seventeenth-Century Britain. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995.
• Robert Boyle (1627–91): Scrupulosity and Science. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000.
• The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science, and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001.
• (with Edward Bradford Davis). The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert Boyle. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
• Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
• Boyle : between God and Science, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
• The Image of Restoration Science : The Frontispiece to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society (1667). London: Routledge, 2016.
• The Decline of Magic. London: Yale University Press, 2020

Notes and References

1. Web site: Professor Michael Hunter. Birkbeck, University of London. 26 May 2016.
2. Noel Malcolm, 'Of Air and Alchemy', Times Literary Supplement, 22 August 2002
3. Book: Hunter. Michael. John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning . 1975 . Science History Publications. New York. 978-0-88202-039-6.
4. Web site: Chemical Heritage Foundation to Present Roy G. Neville Prize to Michael Hunter. Chemical Heritage Foundation. 26 May 2016. dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160712194432/http://www.chemheritage.org/about/news-and-press/press-releases/2011-10-10-neville-prize.aspx. July 12, 2016.
5. Reviewed by Roy Porter, 'To Justify the Works of Boyle to Man', History of Science 39 (2001), pp. 241-48
6. Web site: Roy G. Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography. 5 July 2016. Science History Institute. 26 March 2018.
7. News: Allen. Katie. Samuel Pepys Award to Michael Hunter. 26 May 2016 . The Bookseller. October 26, 2011.
8. Web site: The Robert Latham medal. Samuel Pepys Club. 26 May 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160325155607/http://www.pepys-club.org.uk/page5.html. 25 March 2016. dead.
9. Book: Steven . Shapin . Steven Shapin . Simon . Schaffer . Simon Schaffer . Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life . 2nd . Princeton University Press . 978-1-4008-3849-3 . 2011 . Princeton, NJ . 759907750 . xxxvi .
10. Web site: Michael Hunter, College oration. Birkbeck College. 26 May 2016.
11. Thorson. James L. . Hunter . Michael. Science and Society in Restoration England.. Eighteenth-Century Studies. 1983 . 17. 2. 214. 10.2307/2738292. 2738292.