Victorian Science In Context

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Victorian Science in Context

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226481107
Total Pages : 499 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Victorian Science in Context by : Bernard Lightman

Download or read book Victorian Science in Context written by Bernard Lightman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-07-31 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorians were fascinated by the flood of strange new worlds that science was opening to them. Exotic plants and animals poured into London from all corners of the Empire, while revolutionary theories such as the radical idea that humans might be descended from apes drew crowds to heated debates. Men and women of all social classes avidly collected scientific specimens for display in their homes and devoured literature about science and its practitioners. Victorian Science in Context captures the essence of this fascination, charting the many ways in which science influenced and was influenced by the larger Victorian culture. Contributions from leading scholars in history, literature, and the history of science explore questions such as: What did science mean to the Victorians? For whom was Victorian science written? What ideological messages did it convey? The contributors show how practical concerns interacted with contextual issues to mold Victorian science—which in turn shaped much of the relationship between modern science and culture.

Victorian Popularizers of Science

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226481174
Total Pages : 565 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Victorian Popularizers of Science by : Bernard Lightman

Download or read book Victorian Popularizers of Science written by Bernard Lightman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ideas of Charles Darwin and his fellow Victorian scientists have had an abiding effect on the modern world. But at the time The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the British public looked not to practicing scientists but to a growing group of professional writers and journalists to interpret the larger meaning of scientific theories in terms they could understand and in ways they could appreciate. Victorian Popularizers of Science focuses on this important group of men and women who wrote about science for a general audience in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bernard Lightman examines more than thirty of the most prolific, influential, and interesting popularizers of the day, investigating the dramatic lecturing techniques, vivid illustrations, and accessible literary styles they used to communicate with their audience. By focusing on a forgotten coterie of science writers, their publishers, and their public, Lightman offers new insights into the role of women in scientific inquiry, the market for scientific knowledge, tensions between religion and science, and the complexities of scientific authority in nineteenth-century Britain.

A Science of Our Own

Author : Peter H. Hoffenberg
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822987066
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis A Science of Our Own by : Peter H. Hoffenberg

Download or read book A Science of Our Own written by Peter H. Hoffenberg and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Reverend Henry Carmichael opened the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts in 1833, he introduced a bold directive: for Australia to advance on the scale of nations, it needed to develop a science of its own. Prominent scientists in the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria answered this call by participating in popular exhibitions far and near, from London’s Crystal Place in 1851 to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane during the final decades of the nineteenth century. A Science of Our Own explores the influential work of local botanists, chemists, and geologists—William B. Clarke, Joseph Bosisto, Robert Brough Smyth, and Ferdinand Mueller—who contributed to shaping a distinctive public science in Australia during the nineteenth century. It extends beyond the political underpinnings of the development of public science to consider the rich social and cultural context at its core. For the Australian colonies, as Peter H. Hoffenberg argues, these exhibitions not only offered a path to progress by promoting both the knowledge and authority of local scientists and public policies; they also ultimately redefined the relationship between science and society by representing and appealing to the growing popularity of science at home and abroad.

Strange Science

Author : Lara Pauline Karpenko
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 047213017X
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (721 download)

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Book Synopsis Strange Science by : Lara Pauline Karpenko

Download or read book Strange Science written by Lara Pauline Karpenko and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating look at scientific inquiry during the Victorian period and the shifting boundary between mainstream and unorthodox sciences of the time

Reforming Philosophy

Author : Laura J. Snyder
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226767353
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Reforming Philosophy by : Laura J. Snyder

Download or read book Reforming Philosophy written by Laura J. Snyder and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Victorian period in Britain was an “age of reform.” It is therefore not surprising that two of the era’s most eminent intellects described themselves as reformers. Both William Whewell and John Stuart Mill believed that by reforming philosophy—including the philosophy of science—they could effect social and political change. But their divergent visions of this societal transformation led to a sustained and spirited controversy that covered morality, politics, science, and economics. Situating their debate within the larger context of Victorian society and its concerns, Reforming Philosophy shows how two very different men captured the intellectual spirit of the day and engaged the attention of other scientists and philosophers, including the young Charles Darwin. Mill—philosopher, political economist, and Parliamentarian—remains a canonical author of Anglo-American philosophy, while Whewell—Anglican cleric, scientist, and educator—is now often overlooked, though in his day he was renowned as an authority on science. Placing their teachings in their proper intellectual, cultural, and argumentative spheres, Laura Snyder revises the standard views of these two important Victorian figures, showing that both men’s concerns remain relevant today. A philosophically and historically sensitive account of the engagement of the major protagonists of Victorian British philosophy, Reforming Philosophy is the first book-length examination of the dispute between Mill and Whewell in its entirety. A rich and nuanced understanding of the intellectual spirit of Victorian Britain, it will be welcomed by philosophers and historians of science, scholars of Victorian studies, and students of the history of philosophy and political economy.

Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910

Author : Lee T. Macdonald
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822983494
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910 by : Lee T. Macdonald

Download or read book Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910 written by Lee T. Macdonald and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kew Observatory was originally built in 1769 for King George III, a keen amateur astronomer, so that he could observe the transit of Venus. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was a world-leading center for four major sciences: geomagnetism, meteorology, solar physics, and standardization. Long before government cutbacks forced its closure in 1980, the observatory was run by both major bodies responsible for the management of science in Britain: first the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and then, from 1871, the Royal Society. Kew Observatory influenced and was influenced by many of the larger developments in the physical sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century, while many of the major figures involved were in some way affiliated with Kew. Lee T. Macdonald explores the extraordinary story of this important scientific institution as it rose to prominence during the Victorian era. His book offers fresh new insights into key historical issues in nineteenth-century science: the patronage of science; relations between science and government; the evolution of the observatory sciences; and the origins and early years of the National Physical Laboratory, once an extension of Kew and now the largest applied physics organization in the United Kingdom.

Evolution and the Victorians

Author : Jonathan Conlin
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1441187529
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (411 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution and the Victorians by : Jonathan Conlin

Download or read book Evolution and the Victorians written by Jonathan Conlin and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-16 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin's discovery of evolution by natural selection was the greatest scientific discovery of all time. The publication of his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, is normally taken as the point at which evolution erupted as an idea, radically altering how the Victorians saw themselves and others. This book tells a very different story. Darwin's discovery was part of a long process of negotiation between imagination, faith and knowledge which began long before 1859 and which continues to this day. Evolution and the Victorians provides historians with a survey of the thinkers and debates implicated in this process, from the late 18th century to the First World War. It sets the history of science in its social and cultural context. Incorporating text-boxes, illustrations and a glossary of specialist terms, it provides students with the background narrative and core concepts necessary to engage with specialist historians such as Adrian Desmond, Bernard Lightman and James Secord. Conlin skilfully synthesises material from a range of sources to show the ways in which the discovery of evolution was a collaborative enterprise pursued in all areas of Victorian society, including many that do not at first appear "scientific".

The Victorian Period

Author : Robin Gilmour
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317871308
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (178 download)

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Book Synopsis The Victorian Period by : Robin Gilmour

Download or read book The Victorian Period written by Robin Gilmour and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a thought-provoking synthesis of the Victorian period, focusing on the themes of science, religion, politics and art. It examines the developments which radically changed the intellectual climate and illustrates how their manifestations permeated Victorian literature. The author begins by establishing the social and institutional framework in which intellectual and cultural life developed. Special attention is paid to the reform agenda of new groups which challenged traditional society, and this perspective informs Gilmour's discussion throughout the book. He assesses Victorian religion, science and politics in their own terms and in relation to the larger cultural politics of the middle-class challenge to traditionalism. Familiar topics, such as the Oxford Movement and Darwinism, are seen afresh, and those once neglected areas which are now increasingly important to modern scholars are brought into clear focus, such as Victorian agnosticism, the politics of gender, 'Englishness', and photography. The most innovative feature of this compelling study is the prominence given to the contemporary preoccupation with time. The Victorians' time-hauntedness emerges as the defining feature of their civilisation - the remote time of geology and evolution, the public time of history, the private time of autobiography.

Victorian Poetry in Context

Author : Rosie Miles
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1441182462
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (411 download)

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Book Synopsis Victorian Poetry in Context by : Rosie Miles

Download or read book Victorian Poetry in Context written by Rosie Miles and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorian Poetry in Context offers a lively and accessible introduction to the diverse range of poetry written in the Victorian period. Considering such issues as reform and protest, gender, science and belief this book sets out the social and cultural contexts for the poetry of a fast-changing era. Sections on Victorian poetics, form and Victorian voices introduce the key literary contexts of poetry's production, and poetic innovations of the period such as the dramatic monologue are highlighted . At the heart of the book is a focus on the importance of attentive close reading, with original readings offered of well-known texts alongside those that have recently received renewed attention within scholarship. The book also offers an overview of critical approaches to several key texts and discussion of how Victorian poetry has remained influential in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Introducing texts, contexts and criticism, this is a lively and up-to-date resource for anyone studying Victorian poetry.

Science and Salvation

Author : Aileen Fyfe
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226276465
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Science and Salvation by : Aileen Fyfe

Download or read book Science and Salvation written by Aileen Fyfe and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Threatened by the proliferation of cheap, mass-produced publications, the Religious Tract Society issued a series of publications on popular science during the 1840s. The books were intended to counter the developing notion that science and faith were mutually exclusive, and the Society's authors employed a full repertoire of evangelical techniques—low prices, simple language, carefully structured narratives—to convert their readers. The application of such techniques to popular science resulted in one of the most widely available sources of information on the sciences in the Victorian era. A fascinating study of the tenuous relationship between science and religion in evangelical publishing, Science and Salvation examines questions of practice and faith from a fresh perspective. Rather than highlighting works by expert men of science, Aileen Fyfe instead considers a group of relatively undistinguished authors who used thinly veiled Christian rhetoric to educate first, but to convert as well. This important volume is destined to become essential reading for historians of science, religion, and publishing alike.

Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism

Author : John van Wyhe
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351911295
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism by : John van Wyhe

Download or read book Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism written by John van Wyhe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. By restoring Combe and his work to centre stage it provides modern scholars with a more accurate picture of the Victorians' view of their place in Nature.

Nineteenth-Century Science

Author : A.S. Weber
Publisher : Broadview Press
ISBN 13 : 9781551111650
Total Pages : 518 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (116 download)

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Book Synopsis Nineteenth-Century Science by : A.S. Weber

Download or read book Nineteenth-Century Science written by A.S. Weber and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2000-03-10 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth-Century Science is a science anthology which provides over 30 selections from original 19th-century scientific monographs, textbooks and articles written by such authors as Charles Darwin, Mary Somerville, J.W. Goethe, John Dalton, Charles Lyell and Hermann von Helmholtz. The volume surveys scientific discovery and thought from Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of evolution of 1809 to the isolation of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. Each selection opens with a biographical introduction, situating each scientist and discovery within the context of history and culture of the period. Each entry is also followed by a list of further suggested reading on the topic. A broad range of technical and popular material has been included, from Mendeleev’s detailed description of the periodic table to Faraday’s highly accessible lecture for young people on the chemistry of a burning candle. The anthology will be of interest to the general reader who would like to explore in detail the scientific, cultural, and intellectual development of the nineteenth-century, as well as to students and teachers who specialize in the science, literature, history, or sociology of the period. The book provides examples from all the disciplines of western science-chemistry, physics, medicine, astronomy, biology, evolutionary theory, etc. The majority of the entries consist of complete, unabridged journal articles or book chapters from original 19th-century scientific texts.

Imperial Nature

Author : Jim Endersby
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226207927
Total Pages : 442 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Imperial Nature by : Jim Endersby

Download or read book Imperial Nature written by Jim Endersby and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents an examination of the life and career of the botanist and naturalist, discussing the interrelationship of scientific work and ideas and Victorian scientific practices.

The X Club

Author : Ruth Barton
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022655175X
Total Pages : 617 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis The X Club by : Ruth Barton

Download or read book The X Club written by Ruth Barton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1864, amid headline-grabbing heresy trials, members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science were asked to sign a declaration affirming that science and scripture were in agreement. Many criticized the new test of orthodoxy; nine decided that collaborative action was required. The X Club tells their story. These six ambitious professionals and three wealthy amateurs—J. D. Hooker, T. H. Huxley, John Tyndall, John Lubbock, William Spottiswoode, Edward Frankland, George Busk, T. A. Hirst, and Herbert Spencer—wanted to guide the development of science and public opinion on issues where science impinged on daily life, religious belief, and politics. They formed a private dining club, which they named the X Club, to discuss and further their plans. As Ruth Barton shows, they had a clear objective: they wanted to promote “scientific habits of mind,” which they sought to do through lectures, journalism, and science education. They devoted enormous effort to the expansion of science education, with real, but mixed, success. For twenty years, the X Club was the most powerful network in Victorian science—the men succeeded each other in the presidency of the Royal Society for a dozen years. Barton’s group biography traces the roots of their success and the lasting effects of their championing of science against those who attempted to limit or control it, along the way shedding light on the social organization of science, the interactions of science and the state, and the places of science and scientific men in elite culture in the Victorian era.

The Science of Energy

Author : Crosbie Smith
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226764207
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (642 download)

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Book Synopsis The Science of Energy by : Crosbie Smith

Download or read book The Science of Energy written by Crosbie Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although we take it for granted today, the concept of "energy" transformed nineteenth-century physics. In The Science of Energy, Crosbie Smith shows how a North British group of scientists and engineers, including James Joule, James Clerk Maxwell, William and James Thomson, Fleeming Jenkin, and P. G. Tait, developed energy physics to solve practical problems encountered by Scottish shipbuilders and marine engineers; to counter biblical revivalism and evolutionary materialism; and to rapidly enhance their own scientific credibility. Replacing the language and concepts of classical mechanics with terms such as "actual" and "potential" energy, the North British group conducted their revolution in physics so astutely and vigorously that the concept of "energy"—a valuable commodity in the early days of industrialization—became their intellectual property. Smith skillfully places this revolution in its scientific and cultural context, exploring the actual creation of scientific knowledge during one of the most significant episodes in the history of physics.

Language, Science and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle

Author : Christine Ferguson
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351923323
Total Pages : 166 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis Language, Science and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle by : Christine Ferguson

Download or read book Language, Science and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle written by Christine Ferguson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christine Ferguson's timely study is the first comprehensive examination of the importance of language in forming a crucial nexus among popular fiction, biology, and philology at the Victorian fin-de-siècle. Focusing on a variety of literary and non-literary texts, the book maps out the dialogue between the Victorian life and social sciences most involved in the study of language and the literary genre frequently indicted for causing linguistic corruption and debasement - popular fiction. Ferguson demonstrates how Darwinian biological, philological, and anthropological accounts of 'primitive' and animal language were co-opted into wider cultural debates about the apparent brutality of popular fiction, and shows how popular novelists such as Marie Corelli, Grant Allen, H.G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, and Bram Stoker used their fantastic narratives to radically reformulate the relationships among language, thought, and progress that underwrote much of the contemporary prejudice against mass literary taste. In its alignment of scientific, cultural, and popular discourses of human language, Language, Science, and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle stands as a corrective to assessments of best-selling fiction's intellectual, ideological, and aesthetic simplicity.

Sexual Science

Author : Cynthia Russett
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674043022
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Sexual Science by : Cynthia Russett

Download or read book Sexual Science written by Cynthia Russett and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1991-03-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One scarcely knows whether to laugh or cry. The spectacle presented, in Cynthia Russett's splendid book, of nineteenth-century white male scientists and thinkers earnestly trying to prove women inferior to men--thereby providing, along with "savages" and "idiots," an evolutionary buffer between men and animals--is by turns appalling, amusing, and saddening. Surveying the work of real scientists as well as the products of more dubious minds, Russett has produced a learned yet immensely enjoyable chapter in the annals of human folly. At the turn of the century science was successfully challenging the social authority of religion; scientists wielded a power no other group commanded. Unfortunately, as Russett demonstrates, in Victorian sexual science, empiricism tangled with prior belief, and scientists' delineation of the mental and physical differences between men and women was directed to show how and why women were inferior to men. These men were not necessarily misogynists. This was an unsettling time, when the social order was threatened by wars, fierce economic competition, racial and industrial conflict, and the failure of society to ameliorate poverty, vice, crime, illnesses. Just when men needed the psychic lift an adoring dependent woman could give, she was demanding the vote, higher education, and the opportunity to become a wage earner! No other work has treated this provocative topic so completely, nor have the various scientific theories used to marshal evidence of women's inferiority been so thoroughly delineated and debunked. Erudite enough for scholars in the history of science, intellectual history, and the history of women, this book with its stylish presentation will also attract a large nonspecialist audience.