The best of all possible worlds

Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Aristotle, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. All share the venerable title of polymath – or, more colloquially, ‘Renaissance man’. Compared to his peers, though, Leibniz has all but disappeared from collective memory. In this book, historian Michael Kempe tells the invigorating story of how one man was able to make defining contributions to the most diverse fields, becoming one of the most significant thinkers in history. Recreating seven crucial days in Leibniz’s life, Kempe shows us a great mind in action, surging with ideas that would change the course of mathematics and philosophy, even laying early foundations for modern digital culture with his work on binary numbers and mechanical calculators.