Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Tiedon tyttäret. Oppineita eurooppalaisia naisia antiikista valistukseen
[The daughters of knowledge. Female European scholars from antiquity to the Enlightenment]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2008. 445 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-0-31824-9
€ 52, hardback

This richly illustrated work, the winner of the 2008 Finlandia Prize for Non-Fiction, tells the story of female scholars representing 25 different fields of study. The book also contains shorter introductions on more than a hundred women who have influenced the development of science. Hypatia of Alexandria, the prominent mathematician and astronomer murdered in 415 A.D. because she was considered politically dangerous, is one of the most famous of them, while others have been forgotten: in the 1660s – at the age of only thirteen – the pioneering entomologist, naturalist and explorer Maria Sibylla Merian made findings which would have called into question the current teachings of natural history, had they entered into wider public knowledge. Marjo T. Nurminen (born 1967). is an archaeologist specialised in the philosophy of science, and she works as the science editor for the Finnish Broadcasting Company.