This volume includes papers presented during a symposium on the spreading of the scientific revolution outside Western European countries, which was held during the XXth International Congress of History of Science in Liège in 1997. The contributions aim to answer some recent historiographical questions such as the modalities of the spreading of science in different countries, the reception of the new science by different cultures, the kind of changes this reception set in motion, the periodisation in adopting the new scientific knowledge, the structures set up for this adoption. Three geographical areas are presented here: the European countries in the border of the "scientific center", Latin America countries and East Asian regions. The volume constitutes the first attempt at making a synthesis at an international level on the important question of the spreading of the "new science" throughout the world.