Book Reviews at 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 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 March 2016

Adam, Alison, A History of Forensic Science: British Beginnings in the Twentieth Century. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. Pp. 236. ISBN 978-0-415-85642-3. £90.00 (hardback).

Alexander, Amir, Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. Pp. 352. ISBN 978-0-374-53499-8. $16.00 (paperback).

Anderson, Christy, Dunlop, Anne, and Smith, Pamela H. (eds.), The Matter of Art. Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, C.1250-1750. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016. Pp. 360. ISBN 978-1-7849-9282-8. £19.99 (paperback).

Anduaga, Aitor, Geophysics, Realism, and Industry: How Commercial Interests Shaped Geophysical Conceptions, 1900-1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 368. ISBN 978-0-19-875515-9. £45 (hardback).

Barnes, Robin B., Astrology and Reformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 408. ISBN 978-0-19-973605-8. £47.99 (hardback).

Bloore, Peter, and Martin, Edward (eds.), Wingfield College and Its Patrons: Piety and Prestige in Medieval Suffolk. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2015. Pp. 289. ISBN 978-1-84383-832-6. £50 (hardback).

Bonneuil, Christophe, and Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste, The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us. Translated by David Fernbach.  London: Verso Books, 2016. Pp. xiv + 320. ISBN 978-1-7847-8079-1. £16.99 (hardback).

Brandsma, Frank, Larrington, Carolyne, and Saunders, Corinne (eds.), Emotions in Medieval Arthurian Literature: Body, Mind, Voice. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015. Pp. 221. ISBN 978-1-84384-421-1. £60 (hardback).

Burkhardt, Frederick, Secord, James A., and the Editors of the Darwin Correspondence Project (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Volume 23: 1875. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xliv + 799. ISBN 978-1-107-13436-2. £94.99 (hardback)

Casper, Stephen T., The Neurologists: A History of A Medical Speciality in Modern Britain, c. 1789-2000. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-0-7190-9981-6. £16.99 (paperback).

Collier, James H. (ed.), The Future of Social Epistemology: A Collective Vision. London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016. Pp. 300. ISBN 978-1-78348-266-5. £24.95 (paperback).

Copenhaver, Brian P., Magic in Western Culture: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xiv + 612. ISBN 978-1-107-07052-3. £80.00 (hardback).

Curtis, Scott, The Shape of Spectatorship: Art, Science, and Early Cinema in Germany. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Pp. 400. ISBN 978-0-231-13403-3. £24 (paperback).

van Dongen, Jeroen (ed.), Cold War Science and the Transatlantic Circulation of Knowledge. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. x + 293. ISBN 978-9-004-26421-2. €115 (paperback).

Dunn, Richard and Higgitt, Rebekah (eds.), Navigational Enterprises in Europe and Its Empires, 1730-1850. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. 272. ISBN 978-1-137-52063-0. £63 (hardback).

Duris, Pascal, Quelle Révolution Scientifique? Les sciences de la vie dans la querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (XVIe -XVIIIe siècles). Paris: Éditions Hermann, 2016. Pp. 412. ISBN 978-2-7056-9179-0. €40.00 (paperback).

Elmer, Peter, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 384. ISBN 978-0-19-871772-0. £65.00 (hardback).

Erickson, Paul, The World The Game Theorists Made. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 384. ISBN 978-0-226-09717-6. $35.00 (paperback).

Galati, Gaspare, 100 Years of Radar.  Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. Pp. XVIII + 399. ISBN 978-3-319-00583-6. £117 (hardback).

Gale, Barry G., Love in Vienna: The Sigmund Freud-Minna Bernays Affair. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2016. Pp. 250. ISBN 978-1-4408-4220-7. £30 (hardback).

Galilei, Galileo, Sidereus Nuncius, or the Sidereal Messenger. Translated and with Commentary by Albert Van Helden. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 152. ISBN 978-0-226-32009-0. £12.00 (paperback).

Gamwell, Lynn, Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Pp. 576. ISBN 978-0-691-16528-8. £34.95 (hardback).

Gaukroger, Stephen, The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 416. ISBN 978-0-19-875763-4. £30 (hardback).

Grigson, Caroline, Menagerie: The History of Exotic Animals in England, 1100-1837. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 368. ISBN 978-0-19-871470-5. £25.00 (hardback).

Hogg, Jonathan, British Nuclear Culture: Official and Unofficial Narratives in the Long Twentieth Century. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Pp. 248. ISBN 978-1-4411-6976-1. £19.99 (paperback).

Hollings, Christopher D., Scientific Communication Across the Iron Curtain. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. Pp. xii + 109. ISBN 978-3-319-25344-2. £44.99 (paperback).

Jasanoff, Sheila, and Kim, Sang-Hyun (eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 360. ISBN 978-0-226-27652-6. $35.00 (paperback).

Jin, Dengjian, The Great Knowledge Transcendence: The Rise of Western Science and Technology Reframed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. 320. ISBN 978-1-137-52793-6. £63 (hardback).

Johnston, Sean F., Holograms: A Cultural History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 272. ISBN 978-0-19-871276-3. £39.99 (hardback).

Kritsky, Gene, The Tears of RE: Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 160. ISBN 978-0-19-936138-0. £19.99 (hardback).

Lang, Philippa, Science: Antiqvity and Its Legacy. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016. Pp. 192. ISBN 978-1-780-76171-8. £56 (hardback).

Lightman, Bernard, Global Spencerism: The Communication and Appropriation of a British Evolutionist. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. xiv + 310. ISBN 978-9-004-26399-4. €115 (paperback).

Leeson, Robert (ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography. Part III, Fraud, Fascism and Free Market Religion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. 320. ISBN978-1-137-45241-2. £79.00 (hardback).

McKinnell, Robert Gilmore, The Understanding, Prevention and Control of Human Cancer: The Historic Work and Lives of Elizabeth Cavert Miller and James A. Miller. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. xvi + 196. ISBN 978-9-004-28679-5. €45 (paperback).

Mooney, Graham, Intrusive Interventions: Public Health, Domestic Space, and Infectious Disease Surveillance in England, 1840-1914. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015. Pp. 292. ISBN 978-1-58046-527-4. £80 (hardback).

Morris-Reich, Amos, Race and Photography: Racial Photography As Scientific Evidence, 1876-1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. 320. ISBN 978-0-226-32088-5. £23.00 (paperback).

Olson, Richard G., Scientism and Technocracy in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Scientific Management. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2016. Pp. 230. ISBN 978-1-4985-2570-1. £54.95 (hardback).

Opitz, Donald L., Bergwik, Staffan, and Van Tiggelen, Brigitte (eds.), Domesticity in the Making of Modern Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. 320. ISBN 978-1-137-49272-2. £63 (hardback).

Niaz, Mansoor, Chemistry Education and Contributions from History and Philosophy of Science. Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing, 2016. Pp. xx + 250. ISBN 978-3-319-26246-8. £74.50 (hardback).

Preston, Claire, The Poetics of Scientific Investigation in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 320. ISBN 978-0-19-870480-5. £60 (hardback).

Schmalzer, Sigrid, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Pp. x + 320. ISBN 978-0-226-33015-0. £31.50 (hardback).

Swanson, Eric S., Science and Society: Understanding Scientific Methodology, Energy, Climate, and Sustainability. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. Pp. XXIX + 276. ISBN 978-3-319-21986-8. £44.99 (hardback).

Taylor, Fred, Exploring The Planets: A Memoir. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 384. ISBN 978-0-19-967159-5. £25.00 (hardback).

Wagner, Roger, and Briggs, Andrew, The Penultimate Curiosity: How the Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xxiii + 496. ISBN 978-0-19-874795-6. £25.00 (hardback).

Walker, Paul E., Poonawala, Ismail K., Simonowitz, David, and de Callataÿ, Godefroid (eds. and trans. by), Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, Part I: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of EPISTLES 32-36. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xxiii + 496. ISBN 978-0-19-875828-0. £60.00 (hardback).

Walloch, Karen L., The Antivaccine Heresy: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and the Troubled History of Compulsory Vaccination in the United States. Rochester, NY: Univeristy of Rochester Press, 2015. Pp. 352. ISBN 978-1-58046-537-3. £80 (hardback).

Winterbottom, Anna, Hybrid Knowledge in the Early East India Company World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xii + 324. ISBN 978-1-137-38019-7. £63.00 (hardback).

Winterbottom, Anna, and Tesfaye, Facil (eds.), Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World, Volume One: The Medieval and Early Modern Period. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. Pp. 220. ISBN 978-1-137-56760-4. £63 (hardback).

Winterbottom, Anna, and Tesfaye, Facil (eds.), Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World, Volume Two: The Modern Period. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. 296. ISBN 978-1-137-56761-1. £63 (hardback).

Withey, Alun, Transforming the Body: Technology, Self-Fashioning and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Refinded Bodies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. x + 140. ISBN 978-1-137-46747-8. £45.00 (hardback).

Yale, Elizabeth, Sociable Knowledge: Natural History and the Nation in Early Modern Britain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 360. ISBN 978-0-8122-4781-7. £45.50 (hardback).