Books in the Science, Technology and Culture, 1700-1945 series

The four national associations studied in this book are the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS), the Royal Archaeological Institute (RAI) and the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE).

Focuses on developments at the Medical School of the University of Edinburgh and the teaching of one of Scotland's influential Enlightenment naturalists, Dr John Walker, who was the professor of natural history at the medical school from 1779-1803. This book traces his career to find out how he became a naturalist during the Enlightenment.

University astronomy is the tap-root of the discipline from which the community of professional astronomers and its organizing talent emerged. This book provides an explanatory history of the institutional development university observatories, analyzing of the ability of academic astronomers in the period between 1772-1939.