Books in the Science in History series

In this first systematic exploration of the intriguing connections between Victorian physical sciences and what we now call the paranormal, Richard Noakes challenges our view of the history of physics, and deepens our understandings of the relationships between science and the occult, and science and religion.

In this fresh take on astronomy's role in modern Islamic practice, science and technology are linked with the cultural, material, and political transformations of Ottoman Egypt in the nineteenth century.

David Arnold combines social, medical and environmental history to demonstrate the critical importance of poisons and pollution (and attempts to control them) to public anxiety, colonial governance and the role of scientific authority and agency in India between the 1830s and 1950s.

J. D. Bernal's monumental work, Science in History, was the first full attempt to analyse the reciprocal relations of science and society throughout history, from the perfection of the flint hand-axe to the hydrogen bomb. In this remarkable study he illustrates the impetus given to (and the limitations placed upon) discovery and invention by pastoral, agricultural, feudal, capitalist, and socialist systems, and conversely the ways in which science has altered economic, social, and political beliefs and practices. In this first volume Bernal discusses the nature and method of science before describing its emergence in the Stone Age, its full formation by the Greeks and its continuing growth (probably influenced from China) under Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages. Andrew Brown, Bernal's biographer, with a nice sense of paradox, has said of him, he 'was steeped in history, in part because he was always thinking about the future.' He goes on to say, 'Science in History is an encyclopaedic, yet individual and colourful account of the emergence of science from pre-historic times. There is detailed coverage of the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Age and the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. . . The writing flows and is devoid of the tortured idioms that mar so many academic histories of science. After reading it, it is easy to agree with C. P. Snow's orotund observation that Bernal was the last man to know science.Faber Finds are reissuing the illustrated four volume edition first published by Penguin in 1969. The four volumes are: Volume 1: The Emergence of Science, Volume 2: The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, Volume 3: The Natural Sciences in Our Time, Volume 4: The Social Sciences: Conclusion.'This stupendous work . . . is a magnificent synoptic view of the rise of science and its impact on society which leaves the reader awe-struck by Professor Bernal's encyclopaedic knowledge and historical sweep.' Times Literary Supplement

The third volume of Science in History covers the twentieth century, with chapters on the physical sciences and the biological sciences, with their impact on agriculture and medicine.

This fourth and final volume discusses the social sciences, from early rituals and myths, through ancient and medieval conceptualisation of society, and finally on to Marxism, economics, anthropology, and these sciences' impact on twentieth-century perspectives.'This stupendous work .

Edward J. Gillin provides a dramatic account of how the building of the Houses of Parliament involved the use of radically new science and how, while under construction, Parliament became a laboratory and place of scientific experiment. This book will be of value to readers interested in Victorian science, architecture, and politics.

Cultivating Commerce is an accessibly written and beautifully illustrated new social history of botany in Britain and France. It will appeal to all students and scholars working on British and French culture, the history of science and social and gender history in the late eighteenth century.

Rohan Deb Roy argues that British imperial rule occasioned the attribution of medical properties to a range of nonhuman entities including plants, quinine, and mosquitoes in nineteenth-century India. Malarial Subjects is a major new contribution to science studies and the histories of the British Empire, colonial medicine and South Asia. This title is also available as Open Access.

In this engaging exploration of the trials and tribulations of the first mail steamships, Crosbie Smith reveals the uncertainties of Victorian life on the seas. This innovative history shows, in rich detail, how enterprises engineered their ships, constructed empire-wide systems of navigation and won or lost public confidence in the process.

A vast network of telegraph cables spread around the globe in the second half of the nineteenth century. By showing how deeply this network shaped work in electrical physics, Bruce J. Hunt sheds new light on both the history of the Victorian British Empire and the relationship between science and technology.

A study of German scientists who travelled to other nations' empires to observe, record, and collect rich materials that shaped European views of the East. This lavishly illustrated book provides a gripping account of trans-cultural overseas exploration, colonial science, and Anglo-German cooperation and conflicts in the nineteenth century.

Twenty-first-century Japan is known for the world's most aged population. Faced with this challenge, Japan has been a pioneer in using science to find ways of managing a declining birth rate. Science for Governing Japan's Population considers the question of why these population phenomena have been seen as problematic. What roles have population experts played in turning this demographic trend into a government concern? Aya Homei examines the medico-scientific fields around the notion of population that developed in Japan from the 1860s to the 1960s, analyzing the role of the population experts in the government's effort to manage its population. She argues that the formation of population sciences in modern Japan had a symbiotic relationship with the development of the neologism, 'population' (jinko), and with the transformation of Japan into a modern sovereign power. Through this history, Homei unpacks assumptions about links between population, sovereignty, and science. This title is also available as Open Access.