Richard S. Westfall (1924-1996), one of the foremost Newton scholars of his generation, was Professor of History and of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University. His publications include: Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (1958, 1973), The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanism and Mechanics (1971), Force in Newton's Physics: the Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century (1971), Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1980), Essays on the Trial of Galileo (1989), and The Life of Isaac Newton (1993). In 1983 the History of Science Society (which he served as president in 1977 and 1978), honored him with its Pfizer Award for Never at Rest, which will be the standard biography of Isaac Newton for many years.

During the last years of his life, Professor Westfall was engaged in a research project on patronage in the early-modern scientific community. As part of this project, he prepared a data base containing information on the careers of more than 600 scientists, his Catalog of the Scientific Community in the 16th and 17th Centuries. With his customary generosity, he made this catalog available on disk, free of charge, to colleagues for their private use. In 1994, he gave permission for the catalog to be included in the Galileo Project.

This richly detailed biography captures both the personal life and the scientific career of Isaac Newton, presenting a fully rounded picture of Newton the man, the scientist, the philosopher, the theologian, and the public figure. Professor Westfall treats all aspects of Newton's career, but his account centres on a full description of Newton's achievements in science. Thus the core of the work describes the development of the calculus, the experimentation that altered the direction of the science of optics, and especially the investigations in celestial dynamics that led to the law of universal gravitation.