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Ivan Pavlov Daniel P. Todes (Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University)

Ivan Pavlov By Daniel P. Todes (Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University)

Summary

This is the first scholarly biography of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) in any language. Based upon a wealth of archival material, it weaves his life and science into some 100 years of Russian history and offers a fundamental reinterpretation of his scientific style and his famous research on conditional reflexes.

Ivan Pavlov Summary

Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science by Daniel P. Todes (Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University)

This is a definitive, deeply researched biography of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and is the first scholarly biography to be published in any language. The book is Todes's magnum opus, which he has been working on for some twenty years. Todes makes use of a wealth of archival material to portray Pavlov's personality, life, times, and scientific work. Combining personal documents with a close reading of scientific texts, Todes fundamentally reinterprets Pavlov's famous research on conditional reflexes. Contrary to legend, Pavlov was not a behaviorist (a misimpression captured in the false iconic image of his training a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell); rather, he sought to explain not simply external behaviors, but the emotional and intellectual life of animals and humans. This iconic objectivist was actually a profoundly anthropomorphic thinker whose science was suffused with his own experiences, values, and subjective interpretations. This book is also a traditional life and times biography that weaves Pavlov into some 100 years of Russian history-particularly that of its intelligentsia-from the emancipation of the serfs to Stalin's time. Pavlov was born to a family of priests in provincial Ryazan before the serfs were emancipated, made his home and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg in late imperial Russia, suffered the cataclysmic destruction of his world during the Bolshevik seizure of power and civil war of 1917-1921, rebuilt his life in his 70s as a prosperous dissident during the Leninist 1920s, and flourished professionally as never before in 1929-1936 during the industrialization, revolution, and terror of Stalin. Todes's story of this powerful personality and extraordinary man is based upon interviews with surviving coworkers and family members (along with never-before-analyzed taped interviews from the 1960s and 1970s), examination of hundreds of scientific works by Pavlov and his coworkers, and close analysis of materials from some twenty-five archives. The documents range from the records of his student years at Ryazan Seminary to the transcripts of the Communist Party cells in his labs, and from his scientific manuscripts and notebooks to his political speeches; they include revealing love letters to his future wife and correspondence with hundreds of lay people, scholars, artists, and Communist Party leaders; and unpublished memoirs by many coworkers, his daughter, his wife, and his lover.

Ivan Pavlov Reviews

A shining example of an academic biography. * Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History *
Well written, thoroughly researched and extremely readable, the cost represents good value for money and Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science deserves a place on all good library shelves. * Sue Howarth, The Biologist *
magisterial biography * London Review of Books *
David Todes has spent more then twenty years with his subject, and has evidently approached his task with the same dedication that Pavlov kept up through his many decades in the lab. Tode's sources range from the whimsical and self-revealing journal with which Pavlov wooed his future wife in 1879 to NKVD surveillance reports on his mood more than half a century later, from documents on the student Pavlov's very first research into nervous control of the organs to taped interviews with his co-workers several decades after his death. The result is history of science at its intricate best. * Stephen Lovell, The Times Literary Supplement *
Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science Science is an exceptional scientific biography, but it is also a vivid portrait of its time and place. Todes wears his exhaustive research lightly, never burdening the reader with unnecessary or undigested detail. Unlike Pavlov's dogs, teased and drained into a state of perpetual appetite, the reader is left fully sated. * Australian Book Review *
Well written, thoroughly researched and extremely readable... * Biologist *
Daniel P. Todes achieves a level of mastery that transforms biography into history... an exemplary work of scholarship * Science, Stephen T. Casper *
a colossal work of scholarship and imagination * Raymond Tallis, Book of the Year 2014, Times Literary Supplement *
Profoundly researched, densely detailed and likely to be definitive * Nature *

About Daniel P. Todes (Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University)

Daniel P. Todes is Professor, Institute of History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

Table of Contents

Preface ; Introduction ; PART ONE: The Seminarian Chooses Science (1849-1874) ; 1. The Pavlovs of Riazan' ; 2. Seminarian in the 'Sixties ; 3. St. Petersburg University ; PART TWO: Wilderness Years (1875-1890) ; 4. The Reluctant Physician ; 5. Serafima Vasil'evna Karchevskaia ; 6. Time of Troubles ; 7. In From the Cold ; PART THREE: Man of Tsarist Science (1891-1904) ; 8. A NonChekhovian Type ; 9. The Pavlovs of St. Petersburg ; 10. Professor of Physiology ; 11. The Physiology Factory: Forces of Production ; 12. The Physiology Factory: Relations of Production ; 13. Favorite Dogs ; 14. A Convincing Synthesis ; 15. Dacha Life ; 16. A European Reputation ; 17. Targeting the Psyche ; 18. The Nobel Prize ; PART FOUR: Nobelist in the Silver Age (1905-1914) ; 19. Amid Russia's Political Crisis ; 20. Family Life ; 21. Pavlov's Quest ; 22. The Factory Retooled ; 23. Battle of the Titans ; 24. Women Coworkers and the Physiology of Emotion ; 25. Mariia Kapitonovna Petrova ; PART FIVE: War and Revolution (1914-1921) ; 26. War ; 27. Revolution ; 28. Cataclysm ; 29. Where Are You, Freedom? ; 30. To Leave My Homeland ; PART SIX: Prosperous Dissident (1922-1929) ; 31. The Pavlovs of Leningrad ; 32. A Great Journey ; 33. Laboratory Revival ; 34. Lecturing the Bolsheviks and Leaving the Academy ; 35. The Commissar and the Dialectician ; 36. Freud, the Flood, and the Physiology of Personality ; 37. Two Books and a Beast ; 38. Types, Temperament, and Character ; 39. Work and Play in City and Countryside ; 40. On the Eve of the Great Break ; PART SEVEN: Icon of Soviet and World Science (1929-1936) ; 41. International Celebrity ; 42. Stalin Times ; 43. Pavlov's Communists ; 44. Koltushi: Pavlov's Science Village ; 45. Psychiatry ; 46. Gestalt Pavlov-Style ; 47. Year of Climaxes ; 48. At the Summit: The International Physiology Congress ; 49. Final Days ; Epilogue ; Glossary ; Bibliography

Additional information

GOR006645049
9780199925193
0199925194
Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science by Daniel P. Todes (Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University)
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Oxford University Press Inc
2014-12-18
880
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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