Books in the Cambridge Science Biographies series

A comprehensive account of the great chemist and administrator, Antoine Lavoisier, covering his oxygen theory of combustion and his role during the French Revolution up to his execution. A historical figure of extraordinary importance, this biography illuminates the rise of modern science and the tumultuous times surrounding it.

This entertaining biography examines the imagination and penetration of Galileo, path-breaker for the telescope, decoder of nature's mathematics, populariser of science, and the Inquisition's most famous victim. Accessible to non-scientists, this is the biography of one of the greatest innovators ever known.

In this entertaining biography David Knight introduces us to Humphry Davy, one of the first professional scientists. Best remembered for his safety lamp, he taught Faraday chemistry, but is also recognized for his poetry and was friends with Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Byron. This book illuminates science and its institutions in Regency Britain.

An almost mythical figure in the development of science, Darwin's theory of natural selection was not initially accepted by many of his contemporaries. This study combines biography and cultural history, charting Darwin's considerable influence from his time to ours.

Henry More, the greatest English metaphysical theologian, was one of the few acknowledged by Newton as influencing his ideas. This biography contains fascinating insights into his physics, spiritual philosophy, and preoccupation with witchcraft. It is an exceptional account of the Scientific Revolution.

Dubbed 'Darwin's Bulldog' for his combative role in the Victorian controversies over evolutionary theory, Thomas Huxley has been widely regarded as the epitome of the professional scientist who emerged in the nineteenth century from the restrictions of ecclesiastical authority and aristocratic patronage. Yet from the 1850s until his death in 1895, Huxley always defined himself as a 'man of science', a moral and religious figure, not a scientist. Exploring his relationships with his wife, fellow naturalists, clergymen and men of letters, White presents a new analysis of the authority of science, literature, and religion during the Victorian period, showing how these different practices were woven into a fabric of high culture, and integrated into institutions of print, education and research. He provides a substantially different view of Huxley's role in the evolution debates, and of his relations with his scientific contemporaries, especially Richard Owen and Charles Darwin.

This book tells the life story of the leading woman of science in Great Britain during the nineteenth century and offers an in-depth analysis of the factors that allowed her to achieve prominence, her extensive scientific writings, and the processes by which her work were committed to historical memory.

Hall's absorbing survey of modern scholarship interprets Newton's experimental approach to nature. Mathematics was the deepest of Newton's varied interests, unified in his single Christian design to explore God's creation. He cannot be simplified as a Platonist or mystic, but remains a complex, enigmatic genius with an imaginative, commonsensical mind.

Renowned for his new branch of physics - electrodynamics - and his original and significant contributions to mathematics and chemistry. With no formal education, he embraced the optimism of the Enlightenment, and Catholicism. This, his only English biography, illuminates his contributions, epoch, and creative genius.

The German scientist Justus von Liebig transformed scientific education, medical practice, and agriculture in Great Britain. William H. Brock's fresh interpretation of Liebig's stormy career shows how he moved chemistry into the sociopolitical marketplace, demonstrating its significance for society in food production, nutrition, and public health.