Thomas Digges was, perhaps, Elizabethan England's most important producer of scientific texts. For his mathematical and astronomical learning, he deserves to be set alongside John Dee and Thomas Harriot. But in terms of his success in reaching popular as well as learned audiences and in preaching a modernized cosmology and scientific method, he is in a class of his own. Above all, his multifaceted career exemplifies the humanist belief that scholarly theory must be applied in civic practice: his educational preparations were followed by activities in the world of print as an editor and author, and in the government as an engineer, member of Parliament, and military officer.

Digges was born in Kent around 1546, the only child of Leonard Digges--whose ancestors included judges, members of Parliament, and justices of the peace--and Bridget Wilford Digges. He later recalled that his earliest years, "even from my cradle," were devoted to...