{"title":"Science Technology And Culture 1700-1945","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"helene-metzger-historian-and-historiographer-of-the-sciences-book-cristina-chimisso-9781032083032","title":"Helene Metzger, Historian and Historiographer of the Sciences","description":"Helene Metzger (1889-1944), the leading historian of chemistry of her generation, left us unparalleled reflections on the theory, practice and aims of history writing. 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Historians have long recognised the power of 'cultural capital' in the competitive climate of the mid-Victorian years, as towns raced to equip themselves with libraries, newspapers, 'Lit. and Phil.' societies and reading rooms, but the staging of the great annual knowledge festivals of the period have not previously been considered in this context.   The four national associations studied 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), who held annual meetings in 62 different provincial towns and cities from 1831 to 1884. In this book it is contended that these meetings were as important as royal visits and major civic ceremonies in providing towns with an opportunity to promote their own status and identity. By deploying a wealth of primary source material, much of which has not been previously utilised by urban historians, this book offers a new and genuinely Britain-wide perspective on a period when comparison and competition with neighbouring places was a constant preoccupation of town leaders.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51116891078929,"sku":"NIN9781409452379","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52648377319697,"sku":"NLS9781409452379","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1409452379.jpg?v=1751403567"},{"product_id":"acid-rain-and-the-rise-of-the-environmental-chemist-in-nineteenth-century-britai-book-peter-reed-9781409457756","title":"Acid Rain and the Rise of the Environmental Chemist in Nineteenth-Century Britain","description":"Robert Angus Smith (1817-1884) was a Scottish chemist and a leading investigator into what came to be known as 'acid rain'. This study of his working life, contextualized through discussion of his childhood, education, beliefs, family, interests and influences sheds light on the evolving understanding of sanitary science during the nineteenth century.   Born in Glasgow and initially trained for a career in the Church of Scotland, Smith instead went on to study chemistry in Germany under Justus von Liebig. On his return to Manchester in the 1840s, Smith's strong Calvinist faith lead him to develop a strong concern for the insanitary environmental conditions in Manchester and other industrial towns in Britain. His appointment as Inspector of the Alkali Administration in 1863 enabled him to marry his social concerns and his work as an analytical chemist, and this book explores his role as Inspector of the Administration from its inception through battles with chemical manufacturers in the courts, to the struggle to widen and tighten the regulatory framework as other harmful chemical nuisances became known.   This study of Smith’s life and work provides an important background to the way that 'chemical' came to have such negative connotations in the century before publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It also offers a fascinating insight into the changing landscape of British politics as regulation and enforcement of the chemical industries came to be seen as necessary, and is essential reading for historians of science, technology and industry in the nineteenth century, as well as environmental historians seeking background context to the twentieth-century environmental movements.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51116922732817,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51116925485329,"sku":"NIN9781409457756","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52648393310481,"sku":"NLS9781409457756","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1409457753.jpg?v=1751115128"},{"product_id":"language-of-mineralogy-book-matthew-d-eddy-9780754663324","title":"The Language of Mineralogy","description":"Classification is an important part of science, yet the specific methods used to construct Enlightenment systems of natural history have proven to be the bête noir of studies of eighteenth-century culture. One reason that systematic classification has received so little attention is that natural history was an extremely diverse subject which appealed to a wide range of practitioners, including wealthy patrons, professionals, and educators. In order to show how the classification practices of a defined institutional setting enabled naturalists to create systems of natural history, this book focuses on developments at Edinburgh's medical school, one of Europe's leading medical programs.  In particular, it concentrates on one of Scotland's most influential Enlightenment naturalists, Rev Dr John Walker, the professor of natural history at the school from 1779 to 1803.  Walker was a traveller, cleric, author and advisor to extremely powerful aristocratic and government patrons, as well as teacher to hundreds of students, some of whom would go on to become influential industrialists, scientists, physicians and politicians. This book explains how Walker used his networks of patrons and early training in chemistry to become an eighteenth-century naturalist. Walker's mineralogy was based firmly in chemistry, an approach common in Edinburgh's medical school, but a connection that has been generally overlooked in the history of British geology. By explicitly connecting eighteenth-century geology to the chemistry being taught in medical settings, this book offers a dynamic new interpretation of the nascent earth sciences as they were practiced in Enlightenment Britain. Because of Walker's influence on his many students, the book also provides a unique insight into how many of Britain's leading Regency and Victorian intellectuals were taught to think about the composition and structure of the material world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51281734533393,"sku":"NIN9780754663324","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52484170809617,"sku":"NLS9780754663324","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0754663329.jpg?v=1751010411"},{"product_id":"avant-garde-and-psychotechnics-book-k-geetha-9781032532646","title":"Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics","description":"Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics presents an innovative look at the Russian avant-garde and its cultural encounters with the sciences in the 1920s. The book examines some of the lesser known entanglements between architects, filmmakers and philosophers, on the one hand, and experimental psychologists and physiologists on the other. In Russia, famous avant-garde artists, such as El Lissitzky, Vassily Kandinsky and Dziga Vertov, helped propagate a movement referred to as \"psychotechnics\" that was emerging at the time in Germany and the United States and eventually led to a \"psychotechnical boom.\" At the end of the story told in the book, it becomes clear that this boom continues to the present day. By analyzing concrete projects undertaken by Russian artists and scientists in cooperation with one another, and by drawing on as-yet-unpublished archival material, Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics challenges the established notion of socialist sciences. At the same time, it provides an entirely new picture of what was thought to be modern art, thereby demonstrating that artistic experimentation had much more than a mere metaphorical meaning in Russian arts in the 1920s.   In 2007 Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics was acknowledged with an award for interdisciplinary research by the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Society, Großbothen. In 2011 the book received funding from the VolkswagenStiftung to be translated into English and Russian (the Russian edition was published by NLO books in 2019). 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To own a Ramsden instrument, be it one of his great theodolites or one of the many sextants and barometers produced at his London workshop, was to own not only an instrument of incredible accuracy and great practical use, but also a thing of beauty.  In this, the first biography of Jesse Ramsden, Dr Anita McConnell reconstructs his life and career and presents us with a detailed account of the instrument trade in this period. By studying the life of one prominent instrument maker, the entire practice of the trade is illuminated, from the initial commission, the intricate planning and design, through the practicalities of production, delivery and, crucially, payment for the work.   The book will naturally be of immeasurable interest to historians of science and scientific instruments but, as it also sheds light on the increasing commercialisation of the scientific trade on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution, should also interest social and economic historians of the eighteenth century.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52142499889425,"sku":"NLS9781138278356","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138278356.jpg?v=1757580513"},{"product_id":"discovering-water-book-david-philip-miller-9780754631774","title":"Discovering Water","description":"The 'water controversy' concerns one of the central discoveries of modern science, that water is not an element but rather a compound. The allocation of priority in this discovery was contentious in the 1780s and has occupied a number of 20th century historians.  The matter is tied up with the larger issues of the so-called chemical revolution of the late eighteenth century. A case can be made for James Watt or Henry Cavendish or Antoine Lavoisier as having priority in the discovery depending upon precisely what the discovery is taken to consist of, however, neither the protagonists themselves in the 1780s nor modern historians qualify as those most fervently interested in the affair. In fact, the controversy attracted most attention in early Victorian Britain some fifty to seventy years after the actual work of Watt, Cavendish and Lavoisier.    The central historical question to which the book addresses itself is why the priority claims of long dead natural philosophers so preoccupied a wide range of people in the later period.  The answer to the question lies in understanding the enormous symbolic importance of James Watt and Henry Cavendish in nineteenth-century science and society.  More than credit for a particular discovery was at stake here. When we examine the various agenda of the participants in the Victorian phase of the water controversy we find it driven by filial loyalty and nationalism but also, most importantly, by ideological struggles about the nature of science and its relation to technological invention and innovation in British society.   At a more general, theoretical, level, this study also provides important insights into conceptions of the nature of discovery as they are debated by modern historians, philosophers and sociologists of science.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52425468150033,"sku":"NLS9780754631774","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53035270242577,"sku":"NIN9780754631774","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780754631774.jpg?v=1759154897"},{"product_id":"chemical-structure-spatial-arrangement-book-peter-j-ramberg-9780754603979","title":"Chemical Structure, Spatial Arrangement","description":"Offering a comprehensive narrative of the early history of stereochemistry, Dr Ramberg explores the reasons for and the consequences of the fundamental change in the meaning of chemical formulas with the emergence of stereochemistry during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.  As yet relatively unexplored by historians, the development of stereochemistry - the study of the three-dimensional properties of molecules - provides a superb case study for exploring the meaning and purpose of chemical formulas, as it entailed a significant change in the meaning of chemical formulas from the purely chemical conception of 'structure' to the physico-chemical conception of molecules provided by the tetrahedral carbon atom.    This study is the first to treat the emergence of the unique visual language of organic chemistry between 1830 and 1874 to place in context the near simultaneous proposal of the tetrahedral carbon atom by J.H. van 't Hoff and J.A. Le Bel in 1874.  Dr Ramberg then examines the research programs in stereochemistry by Johannes Wislicenus, Arthur Hantzsch, Victor Meyer, Carl Bischoff, Emil Fischer and Alfred Werner, showing how the emergence of stereochemistry was a logical continuation of established research traditions in chemistry. In so doing, he also illustrates the novel and controversial characteristics of stereochemical ideas, especially the unprecedented use of mechanistic and dynamic principles in chemical explanation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52425574351121,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52425574940945,"sku":"NLS9780754603979","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780754603979.jpg?v=1759155221"},{"product_id":"phrenology-and-the-origins-of-victorian-scientific-naturalism-book-john-van-wyhe-9780754634089","title":"Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism","description":"Through a reassessment of phrenology, Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism sheds light on all kinds of works in Victorian Britain and America which have previously been unnoticed or were simply referred to with a vague 'naturalism of the times' explanation.    It is often assumed that the scientific naturalism familiar in late nineteenth century writers such as T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall are the effects of a 'Darwinian revolution' unleashed in 1859 on an unsuspecting world following the publication of The Origin of Species.  Yet it can be misleading to view Darwin's work in isolation, without locating it in the context of a well established and vigorous debate concerning scientific naturalism.  Throughout the nineteenth century intellectuals and societies had been discussing the relationship between nature and man, and the scientific and religious implications thereof.  At the forefront of these debates were the advocates of phrenology, who sought to apply their theories to a wide range of subjects, from medicine and the treatment of the insane, to education, theology and even economic theories.  Showing how ideas about naturalism and the doctrine of natural laws were born in the early phrenology controversies in the 1820s, this book charts the spread of such views.  It argues that one book in particular, The Constitution of Man in Relation to External Objects (1828) by George Combe, had an enormous influence on scientific thinking and the popularity of the 'naturalistic movement'.  The Constitution was one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, being published continuously from 1828 to 1899, and selling more than 350,000 copies throughout the world, many times more than Dawin's The Origin of Species. 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Approaching the subject from a number of cultural angles, the essays in this volume explore the fluid relationship between science and belief during this crucial period, and help to trace the development of science as an independent field of study that did not look to religion to provide answers to the workings of the universe.   Taking a broadly chronological approach, each essay in this book addresses a theme that helps illuminate these concerns and highlights how beliefs - both religious and secular - have impinged and influenced the scientific world. By addressing such key issues such as the ongoing debate between Christian fundamentalists and followers of Darwin, and the rise of 'respectable atheism', fascinating insights are provided that help to chart the ever-shifting discourse of science and beliefs.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52426015932689,"sku":"NLS9780754639961","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52739941990673,"sku":"NIN9780754639961","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780754639961.jpg?v=1759156447"},{"product_id":"british-university-observatories-17721939-book-roger-hutchins-9780754632504","title":"British University Observatories 17721939","description":"British University Observatories fills a gap in the historiography of British astronomy by offering the histories of observatories identified as a group by their shared characteristics. The first full histories of the Oxford and Cambridge observatories are here central to an explanatory history of each of the six that undertook research before World War II - Oxford, Dunsink, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow and London. Each struggled to evolve in the middle ground between the royal observatories and those of the 'Grand Amateurs' in the nineteenth century.   Fundamental issues are how and why astronomy came into the universities, how research was reconciled with teaching, lack of endowment, and response to the challenge of astrophysics. One organizing theme is the central importance of the individual professor-directors in determining the fortunes of these observatories, the community of assistants, and their role in institutional politics sometimes of the murkiest kind, patronage networks and discipline shaping coteries. The use of many primary sources illustrates personal motivations and experience.   This book will intrigue anyone interested in the history of astronomy, of telescopes, of scientific institutions, and of the history of universities. The history of each individual observatory can easily be followed from foundation to 1939, or compared to experience elsewhere across the period. 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Filled with sparks and smells, the essays raise broader issues about the ways in which modern science established its legitimacy and social acceptability. They point to two major features of the cultures of science in the eighteenth-century: entertainment and utility. Experimental demonstrations were attended by apothecaries and craftsmen for vocational purposes. At the same time, they had to fit in with the taste of both polite society and market culture. Public demonstrations were a favourite entertainment for ladies and gentlemen and a profitable activity for instrument makers and booksellers.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52481039204625,"sku":"NLS9781138245792","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52747006443793,"sku":"NIN9781138245792","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138245792.jpg?v=1759851132"},{"product_id":"making-scientific-instruments-in-the-industrial-revolution-book-ad-morrison-low-9781138248540","title":"Making Scientific Instruments in the Industrial Revolution","description":"At the start of the Industrial Revolution, it appeared that most scientific instruments were made and sold in London, but by the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851, a number of provincial firms had the self-confidence to exhibit their products in London to an international audience. How had this change come about, and why?  This book looks at the four main, and two lesser, English centres known for instrument production outside the capital: Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, along with the older population centres in Bristol and York. Making wide use of new sources, Dr Morrison-Low, curator of history of science at the National Museums of Scotland, charts the growth of these centres and provides a characterisation of their products. New information is provided on aspects of the trade, especially marketing techniques, sources of materials, tools and customer relationships. From contemporary evidence, she argues that the principal output of the provincial trade (with some notable exceptions) must have been into the London marketplace, anonymously, and at the cheaper end of the market. She also discusses the structure and organization of the provincial trade, and looks at the impact of new technology imported from other closely-allied trades.  By virtue of its approach and subject matter the book considers aspects of economic and business history, gender and the family, the history of science and technology, material culture, and patterns of migration. It contains a myriad of stories of families and firms, of entrepreneurs and customers, and of organizations and arms of government. In bringing together this wide range of interests, Dr Morrison-Low enables us to appreciate how central the making, selling and distribution of scientific instruments was for the Industrial Revolution.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52481615397137,"sku":"NLS9781138248540","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53566815633681,"sku":"NIN9781138248540","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138248540.jpg?v=1759851985"},{"product_id":"william-crookes-18321919-and-the-commercialization-of-science-book-william-h-brock-9780754663225","title":"William Crookes (18321919) and the Commercialization of Science","description":"William Crookes' long life was one of unbroken scientific and business activity, culminating in his appointment as President of the Royal Society in 1913. Throughout his career he was an important science journalist, the discoverer of thallium, the inventor of the radiometer, investigator of cathode rays and the vacuum, a spectroscopist of significance in rare earth chemistry, and a spokesman for a chemical solution to the problems with the world's food supplies. He was also, and perhaps most controversially, an occultist who played a significant role in spiritualism in the 1870s, and was involved with D.D. Home (Browning's Mr Sludge) and other notable mediums of the day. Previous literature on Crookes has tended to focus on his involvement with the spiritualists, sometimes to the detriment of his many scientific achievements. This, the first biography of William Crookes, gives us the whole man: one of the most complex, public, and interesting figures in the history of science.  Professor Brock guides us through the abundant catalogue of Crookes' accomplishments, placing his scientific activities in the context of the business of making a living from science - something that Crookes did principally as a science journalist and editor with his Chemical News (the model for today's Nature), and by business enterprises ranging from water analysis, sewerage schemes, and goldmining to the design of electric light bulbs. We also see Crookes in the lab, as an independent researcher, and learn the processes behind his discovery of thallium, his investigations into matter and energy, and his crucial work on cathode rays. We see the public man, the celebrity who was much sought after for his opinions on the latest discovery, and who was widely regarded as Britain's leading scientist at the beginning of the twentieth century.   Scientist, spiritualist, entrepreneur: Sir William Crookes' extraordinary life and many endeavours provide a unique window into Victorian and Edwardian science and industry.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52482134966545,"sku":"NLS9780754663225","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780754663225.jpg?v=1759852751"},{"product_id":"science-and-spectacle-in-the-european-enlightenment-book-bernadette-bensaude-vincent-9780754663706","title":"Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment","description":"Air-pumps, electrical machines, colliding ivory balls, coloured sparks, mechanical planetariums, magic mirrors, hot-air balloons - these are just a sample of the devices displayed in public demonstrations of science in the eighteenth century. 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Filled with sparks and smells, the essays raise broader issues about the ways in which modern science established its legitimacy and social acceptability. They point to two major features of the cultures of science in the eighteenth-century: entertainment and utility. Experimental demonstrations were attended by apothecaries and craftsmen for vocational purposes. At the same time, they had to fit in with the taste of both polite society and market culture. 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How had this change come about, and why?  This book looks at the four main, and two lesser, English centres known for instrument production outside the capital: Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, along with the older population centres in Bristol and York. Making wide use of new sources, Dr Morrison-Low, curator of history of science at the National Museums of Scotland, charts the growth of these centres and provides a characterisation of their products. New information is provided on aspects of the trade, especially marketing techniques, sources of materials, tools and customer relationships. From contemporary evidence, she argues that the principal output of the provincial trade (with some notable exceptions) must have been into the London marketplace, anonymously, and at the cheaper end of the market. She also discusses the structure and organization of the provincial trade, and looks at the impact of new technology imported from other closely-allied trades.  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London's readers were among the first in Europe to be exposed to regular newspapers and the advertisements contained in them. This occurred just as science began to captivate the nation's imagination due, in part, to Isaac Newton's rising popularity following the publication of his Principia (1687). This unique moment allows us to see how advertising helped shape the initial public reception of science.  This book fills a substantial gap in our understanding of science and the culture in which it developed by examining the medium of advertising and its function in the discourse of both early-modern science and commerce. It answers questions such as: what happens to science once it is a commodity; how are consumers tempted to purchase science amidst a sea of other commodities; how is the reading public encouraged to give social acceptance to facts of nature; and how did marketing campaigns craft newspapers readers into a source of validation for the items of science advertised? 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It is often assumed that the scientific naturalism familiar in late nineteenth century writers such as T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall are the effects of a 'Darwinian revolution' unleashed in 1859 on an unsuspecting world following the publication of The Origin of Species.  Yet it can be misleading to view Darwin's work in isolation, without locating it in the context of a well established and vigorous debate concerning scientific naturalism.  Throughout the nineteenth century intellectuals and societies had been discussing the relationship between nature and man, and the scientific and religious implications thereof.  At the forefront of these debates were the advocates of phrenology, who sought to apply their theories to a wide range of subjects, from medicine and the treatment of the insane, to education, theology and even economic theories.  Showing how ideas about naturalism and the doctrine of natural laws were born in the early phrenology controversies in the 1820s, this book charts the spread of such views.  It argues that one book in particular, The Constitution of Man in Relation to External Objects (1828) by George Combe, had an enormous influence on scientific thinking and the popularity of the 'naturalistic movement'.  The Constitution was one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, being published continuously from 1828 to 1899, and selling more than 350,000 copies throughout the world, many times more than Dawin's The Origin of Species. 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He held the posts of Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge (1875-1923) and Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution (1877-1923) and is remembered principally for his efforts to liquefy hydrogen successfully in the field that would come to be known as cryogenics. His experiments in this field led him to develop the vacuum flask, now more commonly known as the thermos, and in 1898 he was the first person to successfully liquefy hydrogen. A man of many interests, he was also, with Frederick Abel, the inventor of explosive cordite, an achievement that involved him in a major legal battle with Alfred Nobel. Indeed, Dewar's career saw him involved in a number of public quarrels with fellow scientists; he was a fierce and sometimes unscrupulous defender of his rights and his claims to priority in a way that throws much light on the scientific spirit and practice of his day.    This, the first scholarly biography of Dewar, seeks to resurrect and reinterpret a man who was a giant of his time, but is now sadly overlooked. In so doing, the book will shed much new light on the scientific culture of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and the development of the field of chemistry in Britain.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52653735575825,"sku":"NLS9781409406136","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53036434653457,"sku":"NIN9781409406136","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781409406136.jpg?v=1762212227"},{"product_id":"science-policies-and-twentieth-century-dictatorships-book-amparo-gmez-9781472422323","title":"Science Policies and Twentieth-Century Dictatorships","description":"Making a fresh contribution to the political history of science, this book explores the connections between the science policies of three countries that each experienced considerable political upheaval in the twentieth century: Spain, Italy and Argentina. By focussing on these three countries, the contributors are able to present case studies that highlight the characteristics and specificities of the democratic and dictatorial political processes involved in the production of science and technology. The focus on dictatorship presents the opportunity to expand our knowledge -beyond the more extensive literature about science in Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR -about the level of political involvement of scientists in non-democratic contexts and to what extent they act as politicians in different contexts. Key topics covered include the new forms of organization and institutionalization of science in the twentieth century; the involvement of scientific communities in the governance of science and its institutions; the role of ideology in scientific development; the scientific practices adopted by scientific communities in different contexts; and the characteristics of science and technology produced in these contexts.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52653758808337,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52653759168785,"sku":"NLS9781472422323","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781472422323.jpg?v=1762212328"},{"product_id":"entrepreneurial-ventures-in-chemistry-book-peter-reed-9781472449788","title":"Entrepreneurial Ventures in Chemistry","description":"The Muspratt family form a fascinating dynasty in the history of British commerce and manufacturing. 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The changing views about the origin of the craters mark an important paradigm shift in the Earth sciences, from an Earth-centric approach to a planetary perspective that acknowledged Earth's place in the wider cosmos. Drawing on a range of printed sources, detailed archival material, letters, personal notes, and interviews with veterans of Ries research, Martina KAlbl-Ebert provides a detailed reconstruction, not only of the historical sequence of events throughout the twentieth century, but also of the personal thoughts, emotions and motives of the scientists involved and the social context of their research. She shows that there was a sudden reconnection of German researchers with the international scientific community, particularly with more progressive American researchers, after some twenty-five years of scientific isolation during the build-up to WI and its aftermath. This reconnection brought about not only a new view of geoscience, but also saved German geology from self-sufficiency and patriotic arrogance by integrating it in an interdisciplinary and international framework. 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As yet relatively unexplored by historians, the development of stereochemistry - the study of the three-dimensional properties of molecules - provides a superb case study for exploring the meaning and purpose of chemical formulas, as it entailed a significant change in the meaning of chemical formulas from the purely chemical conception of 'structure' to the physico-chemical conception of molecules provided by the tetrahedral carbon atom.    This study is the first to treat the emergence of the unique visual language of organic chemistry between 1830 and 1874 to place in context the near simultaneous proposal of the tetrahedral carbon atom by J.H. van 't Hoff and J.A. Le Bel in 1874.  Dr Ramberg then examines the research programs in stereochemistry by Johannes Wislicenus, Arthur Hantzsch, Victor Meyer, Carl Bischoff, Emil Fischer and Alfred Werner, showing how the emergence of stereochemistry was a logical continuation of established research traditions in chemistry. 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One reason that systematic classification has received so little attention is that natural history was an extremely diverse subject which appealed to a wide range of practitioners, including wealthy patrons, professionals, and educators. In order to show how the classification practices of a defined institutional setting enabled naturalists to create systems of natural history, this book focuses on developments at Edinburgh's medical school, one of Europe's leading medical programs. In particular, it concentrates on one of Scotland's most influential Enlightenment naturalists, Rev Dr John Walker, the professor of natural history at the school from 1779 to 1803. Walker was a traveller, cleric, author and advisor to extremely powerful aristocratic and government patrons, as well as teacher to hundreds of students, some of whom would go on to become influential industrialists, scientists, physicians and politicians. 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This study of Smith's life and work provides an important background to the way that 'chemical' came to have such negative connotations in the century before publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. 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He held the posts of Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge (1875-1923) and Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution (1877-1923) and is remembered principally for his efforts to liquefy hydrogen successfully in the field that would come to be known as cryogenics. His experiments in this field led him to develop the vacuum flask, now more commonly known as the thermos, and in 1898 he was the first person to successfully liquefy hydrogen. A man of many interests, he was also, with Frederick Abel, the inventor of explosive cordite, an achievement that involved him in a major legal battle with Alfred Nobel. Indeed, Dewar's career saw him involved in a number of public quarrels with fellow scientists; he was a fierce and sometimes unscrupulous defender of his rights and his claims to priority in a way that throws much light on the scientific spirit and practice of his day.    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The matter is tied up with the larger issues of the so-called chemical revolution of the late eighteenth century. A case can be made for James Watt or Henry Cavendish or Antoine Lavoisier as having priority in the discovery depending upon precisely what the discovery is taken to consist of, however, neither the protagonists themselves in the 1780s nor modern historians qualify as those most fervently interested in the affair. In fact, the controversy attracted most attention in early Victorian Britain some fifty to seventy years after the actual work of Watt, Cavendish and Lavoisier.    The central historical question to which the book addresses itself is why the priority claims of long dead natural philosophers so preoccupied a wide range of people in the later period.  The answer to the question lies in understanding the enormous symbolic importance of James Watt and Henry Cavendish in nineteenth-century science and society.  More than credit for a particular discovery was at stake here. When we examine the various agenda of the participants in the Victorian phase of the water controversy we find it driven by filial loyalty and nationalism but also, most importantly, by ideological struggles about the nature of science and its relation to technological invention and innovation in British society.   At a more general, theoretical, level, this study also provides important insights into conceptions of the nature of discovery as they are debated by modern historians, philosophers and sociologists of science.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52678331760913,"sku":"NLS9781138258457","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53367976395025,"sku":"NIN9781138258457","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138258457.jpg?v=1762307861"},{"product_id":"william-crookes-18321919-and-the-commercialization-of-science-book-william-h-brock-9781138259881","title":"William Crookes (18321919) and the Commercialization of Science","description":"William Crookes' long life was one of unbroken scientific and business activity, culminating in his appointment as President of the Royal Society in 1913. Throughout his career he was an important science journalist, the discoverer of thallium, the inventor of the radiometer, investigator of cathode rays and the vacuum, a spectroscopist of significance in rare earth chemistry, and a spokesman for a chemical solution to the problems with the world's food supplies. He was also, and perhaps most controversially, an occultist who played a significant role in spiritualism in the 1870s, and was involved with D.D. Home (Browning's Mr Sludge) and other notable mediums of the day. Previous literature on Crookes has tended to focus on his involvement with the spiritualists, sometimes to the detriment of his many scientific achievements. This, the first biography of William Crookes, gives us the whole man: one of the most complex, public, and interesting figures in the history of science.  Professor Brock guides us through the abundant catalogue of Crookes' accomplishments, placing his scientific activities in the context of the business of making a living from science - something that Crookes did principally as a science journalist and editor with his Chemical News (the model for today's Nature), and by business enterprises ranging from water analysis, sewerage schemes, and goldmining to the design of electric light bulbs. We also see Crookes in the lab, as an independent researcher, and learn the processes behind his discovery of thallium, his investigations into matter and energy, and his crucial work on cathode rays. We see the public man, the celebrity who was much sought after for his opinions on the latest discovery, and who was widely regarded as Britain's leading scientist at the beginning of the twentieth century.   Scientist, spiritualist, entrepreneur: Sir William Crookes' extraordinary life and many endeavours provide a unique window into Victorian and Edwardian science and industry.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52680786641169,"sku":"NLS9781138259881","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138259881.jpg?v=1762313983"},{"product_id":"british-university-observatories-1772-1939-book-roger-hutchins-9781138264205","title":"British University Observatories 1772-1939","description":"British University Observatories fills a gap in the historiography of British astronomy by offering the histories of observatories identified as a group by their shared characteristics. The first full histories of the Oxford and Cambridge observatories are here central to an explanatory history of each of the six that undertook research before World War II - Oxford, Dunsink, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow and London. Each struggled to evolve in the middle ground between the royal observatories and those of the 'Grand Amateurs' in the nineteenth century.   Fundamental issues are how and why astronomy came into the universities, how research was reconciled with teaching, lack of endowment, and response to the challenge of astrophysics. One organizing theme is the central importance of the individual professor-directors in determining the fortunes of these observatories, the community of assistants, and their role in institutional politics sometimes of the murkiest kind, patronage networks and discipline shaping coteries. The use of many primary sources illustrates personal motivations and experience.   This book will intrigue anyone interested in the history of astronomy, of telescopes, of scientific institutions, and of the history of universities. The history of each individual observatory can easily be followed from foundation to 1939, or compared to experience elsewhere across the period. Astronomy is competitive and international, and the British experience is contextualised by comparison for the first time to those in Germany, France, Italy and the USA.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52681175925009,"sku":"NLS9781138264205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138264205.jpg?v=1762314929"},{"product_id":"meeting-places-scientific-congresses-and-urban-identity-in-victorian-britain-book-louise-miskell-9781138267107","title":"Meeting Places: Scientific Congresses and Urban Identity in Victorian Britain","description":"The promotion of knowledge was a major preoccupation of the Victorian era and, beginning in 1831 with the establishment of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a number of national bodies were founded which used annual, week-long meetings held each year in a different town or city as their main tool of knowledge dissemination. Historians have long recognised the power of 'cultural capital' in the competitive climate of the mid-Victorian years, as towns raced to equip themselves with libraries, newspapers, 'Lit. and Phil.' societies and reading rooms, but the staging of the great annual knowledge festivals of the period have not previously been considered in this context.   The four national associations studied 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), who held annual meetings in 62 different provincial towns and cities from 1831 to 1884. In this book it is contended that these meetings were as important as royal visits and major civic ceremonies in providing towns with an opportunity to promote their own status and identity. By deploying a wealth of primary source material, much of which has not been previously utilised by urban historians, this book offers a new and genuinely Britain-wide perspective on a period when comparison and competition with neighbouring places was a constant preoccupation of town leaders.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52692934394129,"sku":"NLS9781138267107","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53368599478545,"sku":"NIN9781138267107","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138267107.jpg?v=1762343831"},{"product_id":"brainwaves-a-cultural-history-of-electroencephalography-book-cornelius-borck-9781472469441","title":"Brainwaves: A Cultural History of Electroencephalography","description":"In the history of brain research, the prospect of visualizing brain processes has continually awakened great expectations. In this study, Cornelius Borck focuses on a recording technique developed by the German physiologist Hans Berger to register electric brain currents; a technique that was expected to allow the brain to write in its own language, and which would reveal the way the brain worked. Borck traces the numerous contradictory interpretations of electroencephalography, from Berger's experiments and his publication of the first human EEG in 1929, to its international proliferation and consolidation as a clinical diagnostic method in the mid-twentieth century. Borcks thesis is that the language of the brain takes on specific contours depending on the local investigative cultures, from whose conflicting views emerged a new scientific object: the electric brain.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53506360803601,"sku":"NLS9781472469441","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781472469441.jpg?v=1778233798"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/science-technology-and-culture-1700-1945-book-series.oembed?page=2","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}