History of science

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author examines South Pole expeditions, "e;wrapping the science in plenty of dangerous drama to keep readers engaged"e; (Booklist).

How Western notions of the Buddha have come to misrepresent his teachings and the traditional goals of Buddhist practice This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago.

In this book, Gregory Feist reviews and consolidates the scattered literatures on the psychology of science, then calls for the establishment of the field as a unique discipline.

This book relates how, between 1954 and 1961, the biologist Seymour Benzer mapped the fine structure of the rII region of the genome of the bacterial virus known as phage T4.

In 1957 two young scientists, Matthew Meselson and Frank Stahl, produced a landmark experiment confirming that DNA replicates as predicted by the double helix structure Watson and Crick had recently proposed.

This biography probes the unusual mind, the dramatic life, and the outstanding scientific work of Danish-born immunologist Niels Jerne (1911–1994).

'A brilliant, authoritative, surprising, captivating introduction to human genetics.

From the world-famous expert on chimpanzees - the powerfully compelling sequel to the international bestseller IN THE SHADOW OF MAN: 'An instant animal classic' Time'I can't imagine a more vivid or unexpectedly moving introduction to chimpanzees in the wild than Jane Goodall's' New York TimesEquipped with little more than a notebook, binoculars, and her fascination with wildlife, Jane braved a realm of unknowns to give the world a remarkable window into humankind's closest living relatives.

Figuring the Population Bomb traces the genealogy of twentieth-century demographic facts that created a mathematical panic about a looming population explosion.

The figure of Dai Zhen (17241777) looms large in modern Chinese intellectual history.

The history of a single book sheds light on the beginnings of modern Jewish thoughtIn 1797, in what is now the Czech Republic, Pinas Hurwitz published Book of the Covenant.

Focusing on the period between the 1970s and the present, Life as Surplus is a pointed and important study of the relationship between politics, economics, science, and cultural values in the United States today.

The emergence of genetic science has profoundly shaped how we think about biology.

In 1950, Alan Turing, the British mathematician, cryptographer, and computer pioneer, looked to the future: now that the conceptual and technical parameters for electronic brains had been established, what kind of intelligence could be built?

Queer Feminist Science Studies takes a transnational, trans-species, and intersectional approach to this cutting-edge area of inquiry between womens, gender, and sexuality studies and science and technology studies (STS).

This fascinating study looks at how the seemingly incompatible forces of science, magic, and religion came together in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to form the foundations of modern culture.

How early twentieth century fumigation technologies transformed maritime quarantine practices and inspired utopian visions of disease-free global trade.

The relationship of the dead body with technology through history, from nineteenth-century embalming machines to the death-prevention technologies of today.

The changing relationships between science and industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, illustrated by the career of the “father of plastics.

A fascinating account of the pioneering astronomer who claimed (erroneously) to have discovered a planet outside the solar system.

“Antipsychiatry,” Esalen, psychedelics, and DSM III: Radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s.

How the introduction of steam, iron, and steel required new rules and new ways of thinking for the design and building of ships.

The history of an unnatural disaster—drug overdose—and the emergence of naloxone as a social and technological solution.

From Tyrannosaurus rex to Heteropoda davidbowie: scientific naming as a joyful and creative act.

Lectures, many never before published, that offer insights into the early thinking of the mathematician and polymath George Boole.

How highly abstract quantum concepts were represented in language, and how these concepts were later taken up by philosophers, literary critics, and new-age gurus.

Contributors from a range of disciplines consider the disconnect between human evolutionary studies and the rest of evolutionary biology.

An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past.

An examination of eugenic thinking past and present, from forced sterilization to prenatal screening, drawing on experience with those who survived  eugenics.

The history of the grid, the world''s largest interconnected power machine that is North America''s electricity infrastructure.

An exploration of polyphony and the perspective it offers on our own polyphonic brains.

The fourth edition of an authoritative overview, with all new chapters that capture the state of the art in a rapidly growing field.

An engaging look at how we have learned to live with innovation and new technologies through history.

The transformation of acoustics into electro-acoustics, a field at the intersection of science and technology, guided by electrical engineering, industry, and the military.

How the breeding of new animals and plants was central to fascist regimes in Italy, Portugal, and Germany and to their imperial expansion.

How, beginning in the mid 1960s, the US semiconductor industry helped shape changes in American science, including a new orientation to the short-term and the commercial.

An examination of how technological failures defined nature and national identity in Cold War Canada.

How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China''s information technology successes today.

A fascinating account, written in real time, of the unfolding of a scientific discovery: the first detection of gravitational waves.

Benoît Godin is a Professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Montreal.

The scientific achievements and forgotten legacy of a major Austrian research institute, from its founding in 1902 to its wartime destruction in 1945.

Explorations of science, technology, and innovation in Africa not as the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but as the working of African knowledge.