Robert Morrison On How Knowledge Travels

As a historian of science and scholar of Islam, Professor Robert Morrison wants to know how information spread around the Mediterranean in medieval times. In this conversation, we talk about horoscopes, medieval party tricks, and how Copernicus figured out that the planets circle the sun. Morrison is the George Lincoln Skolfield Jr. Professor of Religion and Middle Eastern and North African Studies at Bowdoin, and the author of several books, most recently Astronomy in al-Andalus: Joseph Ibn Naḥmias’ The Light of the World (University of California Press, 2016).