Science holds a central role in the modern world, yet its complex interrelationships with nature, technology, and politics are often misunderstood or seen from a false perspective. In a series of essays that make extensive use of original work by sociologists, historians, and philosophers of science, J.W. Grove explores the roles and relationships of science in modern technological society.

Modern Science can be viewed from four related perspectives. It is an expression of human curiosity - a passion to understand the natural world: what it is made of, how it is put together, and how it works. It is a body of practice - a set of ways of finding out that distinguish it from other realms of inquiry. It is a profession - a body of men and women owing allegiance to the pursuit of knowledge - and for those people, a career. And it is a prescriptive enterprise in that the increase of scientific understanding makes it possible to put nature to use in new kinds of technology.

Each of these aspects of science is today the focus of critical scrutiny and, often, outright hostility. With many examples, Grove exposes the threats to science today: its identification with technology, its subordination to the state, the false claims made in its name, and the popular intellectual forces that seek to denigrate it as a source of human understanding and progress.