“Are you familiar with Stanley Jaki’s writing about the development of science in the Middle Ages? Based on work by Pierre Duhem. If not I’m sure you’d find it very worthwhile.”
I have read books from both. It blows me away to think that Duhem’s works on the history of science in the Middle Ages are still essential reading 100 years after he died - especially his classic Medieval Cosmology: Theories of Infinity, Place, Time, Void, and the Plurality of Worlds.
I only know Duhem through Jaki’s writing. National Review, many years ago when it was actually a magazine worth reading, ran a book review on a book that Jaki had written on Duhem and I began seeking out his writing. I never did run across a book by Duhem himself.
There was at least one other National Review regular of, say, the 1980s, who was a Medievalist. I can’t recall his name even though I have a book by him. He was more oriented to philosophy and Medieval thought than science. But between his writing and that of Jaki I developed a respect for the Middle Ages that seems to have eluded VDH.