In the aftermath of the English Civil War, the Restoration overturned England's medieval outlook and a new way of looking at the world allowed the genius of Isaac Newton (b. 1642) and his contemporaries to flourish. This book sets Newton's life and work against this fabulous intellectual rebirth.: among his friends and contemporaries were Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn the eccentric antiquarian, the astronomers Edmund Halley and John Flamsteed, and Christopher Wren. They were all in the forefront of founding the Royal Society and their aims were nothing less than to examine the whole field of scientific knowledge.