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).