Book Reviews for the British Journal for the History of Science


Every quarter the British Journal for the History of Science posts a new list of books received on the journal’s website. This can be accessed, along with achieved lists from previous quarters, at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displaySpecialPage?pageId=7272

The journal is interested in commissioning reviews and essay reviews from established academics, emeriti, doctoral students and independent scholars. Prospective reviewers are encouraged to browse the books received list and contact the reviews editor. The reviews editor is also open to suggestions for reviews of books either not on the list, or forthcoming, provided they have been published within the past two calendar years. All enquiries should be directed to reviews.editor@BSHS.ORG.UK


Books received for June 2016

Ackerknecht, Erwin H., A Short History of Medicine, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Pp. xxiii + 247. ISBN 978-1-4214-1954-1. $29.95 (paperback).

Alexander, Amir, Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World. New York: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. Pp. 352. ISBN 978-0-374-53499-8. $16.00 (paperback).
Amadae, S. M., Prisoners of Reason: Game Theory and Neoliberal Political Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xxix + 333. ISBN 978-1-107-67119-5. £64.99 (paperback).

Arnold, David, Toxic Histories: Poison and Pollution in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 241. ISBN 978-1-107-12697-8. £34.99 (hardback).

Aubin, David, and Goldstein, Catherine (eds.), The War of Guns and Mathematics: Mathematical Practice and Communities in France and Its Western Allies around World War I. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society, 2014. Pp. xviii + 391. ISBN 978-1-4704-1469-6. $126.00 (hardback).

Bellorini, Cristina, The World of Plants in Renaissance Tuscany: Medicine and Botany. Farnham: Ashgate, 2016. Pp. xiii + 261. ISBN 978-1-4724-6622-8. £95.00 (hardback).

Beretta, Marco, Lucrezio: De Rerum Natura. Editio Princeps (1472-73). Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2016. Pp. ISBN 978-88-6923-066-0. €150.00 (paperback).

Beretta, Marco, La rivoluzione culturaledi Lucrezio: Filosofia e scienza nell'antica Roma. Roma: Carocci editore, 2015. Pp. 312. ISBN 978-88-430-7945-2. €32.00 (paperback).

Berger, Albert I., Life and Times of Atomic Bomb. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. Pp. ix + 225. ISBN 978-0-765-61986-0. £28.99 (paperback).

Biggs, Norman, Quite Right: The Story of Mathematics, Measurement, and Money. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 176. ISBN 978-0-19-875335-3. £19.99 (hardback).

Brock, William H., The History of Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi + 151. ISBN 978-0-19-871648-8. £7.99 (paperback).

Campenot, Robert B., Animal Electricity: How We Learned That the Body and Brain Are Electric Machines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 340. ISBN 978-0-674-73681-8. $39.95 (cloth).

Cayleef, Susan E., Nature’s Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 397. ISBN 978-1-4214-1903-9. $39.95 (hardback).

Chen-Morris, Raz, Measuring Shadows: Kepler’s Optics of Invisibility. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2016. Pp. 264. ISBN 978-0-271-07098-8. $79.95 (hardback).

Clavelin, Maurice, Galilée, cosmologie et science du mouvement: suivi de Regards sur l'empirisme au xxe siècle. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2016. Pp. 392. ISBN 978-2-271-09023-2. €25.00 (paperback).

Crawford, Matthew J., The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic, 1630-1800. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 284. ISBN 978-0-8229-4452-2. $45.00 (hardback).

Crook, Tom, and Esbester, Mike (eds.), Governing Risks in Modern Britain: Danger, Safety and Accidents, c. 1800-2000. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xiv + 315. ISBN 978-1-137-46744-7. £63.00 (hardback).

Dawson, Gowan, Show Me the Bone: Reconstructing Prehistoric Monsters in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 476. ISBN 978-0-226-33273-4. $50.00 (cloth).

Dixon, John M., The Enlightenment of Cadwallader Colden: Empire, Science, and Intellectual Culture in British New York. Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 243. ISBN 978-0-8014-4803-4. $35.00 (hardback).

Epstein, Marc E., Moths, Myths, and Mosquitoes: The Eccentric Life of Harrison G. Dyar, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 360.  ISBN 978-0-19-021525-5. £25.99 (hardback).

Ferngren, Gary B., Medicine & Health Care in Early Christianity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Pp. 246. ISBN 978-1-4214-2006-6. $29.95 (paperback).

Fleming, James R., Inventing Atmospheric Science: Bjerknes, Rossby, Wexler, and the Foundations of Modern Meteorology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. Pp. x + 296. ISBN 978-0-262-03394-7. £22.95 (cloth).

Franklin, Allan, What Makes a Good Experiment? Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 372. ISBN 978-0-8229-4441-6. $55.00 (hardback).

Gillespie, Sarah K., The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-Currents in Art and Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. Pp. x + 213. £23.95 (cloth).

Golinski, Jan, The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 259. ISBN 978-0-226-35136-0. $30.00 (cloth).

Graham, Loren, Lysenko’s Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 200. ISBN 978-0-674-08905-1. £18.95 (hardback).

Haigh, Thomas, Priestley, Mark, and Rope, Crispin, ENIAC in Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. Pp. xvii + 341. ISBN 978-0-262-03398-5. £28.95 (cloth).

Hardy, Anne, Salmonella Infections, Networks of Knowledge, and Public Health in Britain 1880-1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 249. ISBN 978-0-19-870497-3. £60.00 (hardback).

Hayton, Darin, The Crown and the Cosmos: Astrology and the Politics of Maximilian I. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Pp. xii + 312. ISBN 978-0-8229-4443-0. $45.00 (cloth).

Huth, John Edward, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 528. ISBN 978-0-674-08807-8. $20.95 (paperback).

Jaroszkiewicz, George, Images of Time: Mind, Science, Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi + 305. ISBN 978-0-19-871806-2. £25.00 (hardback).

Jin, Dengjian, The Great Knowledge Transcendence: The Rise of Western Science and Technology Reframed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xii + 312. ISBN 978-1-137-52793-6. £63.00 (hardback).

Johnstone, Emm Barnes, with Baines, Joanna, The Changing Faces of Childhood Cancer: Clinical and Cultural Visions Since 1940. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. xiii + 236. ISBN 978-1-4039-8801-0. £63.00 (hardback).

Jorgensen, Timothy J., Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Pp. 512. ISBN 978-0-691-16503-5. £24.95 (hardback).

Josephson, Paul R., Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, & Aluminium Cans: The Politics of Everyday Technologies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 212. ISBN 978-1-4214-1783-7. $29.95 (paperback).

van Leeuwen, Joyce, The Aristotelian Mechanics: Text and Diagrams. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. Pp. ix + 253. ISBN 978-3-319-25923-9. £86.00 (hardback).

Linstrum, Erik, Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 309. ISBN 978-0-674-08866-5. $39.95 (hardback).

Lopez-Cajun, Carlos, and Ceccarelli, Marco (eds.), Explorations in the History of Machines and Mechanisms: Proceedings of the Fifth IFToMM Symposium on the History of Machines and Mechanisms. Switzerland: Springer, 2016. Pp. vi + 259. ISBN 978-3-319-31182-1. £86.00 (hardback).

Keller, Vera, Knowledge and the Public Interest, 1575-1725. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 350. ISBN 978-1-107-11013-7. £64.99 (hardback).

Lightman, Bernhard (ed.), A Companion to the History of Science. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. Pp. xvi + 601. ISBN 978-1-118-62077-9. £120.00 (hardback).

McCarthy, John A., Hilger, Stephanie M., Sullivan, Heather I., and Saul, Nicholas (eds.), The Early History of Embodied Cognition 1740-1920: The Lebenskraft-Debate and Radical Reality in German Science, Music, and Literature. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. 357. ISBN 978-90-04-30902-9. $128.00 (paperback).

MacLeod, Miles, Sumillera, Rocio G., Surman, Jan, and Smirnova, Ekaterina, Language as a Scientific Tool: Shaping Scientific Language Across Time and National Tradition. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016. Pp. vii + 229. ISBN 978-1-138-10105-0. £90.00 (hardback).

Misa, Thomas J., and Yost, Jeffrey R., FastLane: Managing Science in the Internet World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 206. ISBN 978-1-4214-1868-1. $34.95 (hardback).

Meloni, Maurizio, Political Biology: Science and Social Values in Human Heredity from Eugenics to Epigenetics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xi + 284. ISBN 978-1-137-37771-5. £68.00 (hardback).

Montgomery, Georgina M., and Largent, Mark A., A Companion to the History of American Science. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. Pp. xvii + 692. ISBN 978-1-4051-5625-7. £120.00 (hardback).

Munz, Tania, The Dancing Bees: Karl von Frisch and the Discovery of the Honeybee Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 278. ISBN 978-0-226-02086-0. $30.00 (cloth).

Numbers, Ronald L., and Kampourakis, Kostas (eds.), Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 287. ISBN 978-0-674-96798-4. $27.95 (cloth).

Oldfield, Jonathan D., and Shaw, Denis J. B., The Development of Russian Environmental Thought: Scientific and Geographical Perspectives on the Natural Environment. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. Pp. 196. ISBN 978-0-415-58059-5. £95.00 (hardback).

Park, Hyung W., Old Age, New Science: Gerontologists and Their Biosocial Visions, 1900-1960. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 342. ISBN 978-0-8229-4449-2. $49.95 (hardback).

Priestley, Rebecca (ed.), Dispatches from Continent Seven: An Anthology of Antarctic Science. Wellington: AWA Press, 2016. Pp. xxxi + 422. ISBN 978-1-927249-05-5. NZ$ 55.00 (paperback).

Redman, Samuel J., Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 373. ISBN 978-0-674-66041-0. $29.95 (alk. paper).

Richards, Robert J., and Daston, Lorraine (eds.), Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty: Reflections on a Science Classic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 208. ISBN 978-0-226-31720-5. £17.50 (paperback).

Riskin, Jessica, The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 544. ISBN 978-0-226-30292-8. $40.00 (hardback).

Skuse, Alanna, Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England: Ravenous Natures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. viii + 219. ISBN 978-1-137-48752-0. £20.00 (hardback).

Sussman, Robert Wald, The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 374. ISBN 978-0-674-66003-8. $19.95 (paperback).

Taylor, Simon, The Fall and Rise of Nuclear Power in Britain: A History. Cambridge: UIT Cambridge, 2016. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-1-906-86031-8. £19.99 (paperback).

Wiggins, Arthur W., and Wynn Sr., Charles M., cartoon commentary by Sidney Harris, The Human Side of Science: Edison and Tesla, Watson and Crick, and Other Personal Stories Behind Science's Big Ideas. New York: Prometheus Books, 2016. Pp. 364. ISBN 978-1-63388-156-3 $25.00 (hardback).