This leading international journal publishes scholarly papers and review articles on all aspects of the history of science. History of science is interpreted widely to include medicine, technology and social studies of science. BJHS papers make important and lively contributions to scholarship and the journal has been an essential library resource for more than thirty years. It is also used extensively by historians and scholars in related fields. A substantial book review section is a central feature. There are four issues a year, comprising an annual volume of over 600 pages.
Research Articles
*Presidential address: Experimenting with the scientific past GREGORY RADICK The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 153–172 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000339 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016*
When it comes to knowledge about the scientific pasts that might have been – the so-called ‘counterfactual’ history of science – historians can either debate its possibility or get on with the job. Taking the latter course means re-engaging with some of the most general questions about science. It can also lead to fresh insights into why particular episodes unfolded as they did and not otherwise. Drawing on recent research into the controversy over Mendelism in the early twentieth century, this address reports and reflects on a novel teaching experiment conducted in order to find out what biology and its students might be like now had the controversy gone differently. The results suggest a number of new options: for the collection of evidence about the counterfactual scientific past, for the development of collaborations between historians of science and science educators, for the cultivation of more productive relationships between scientists and their forebears, and for heightened self-awareness about the curiously counterfactual business of being historical.
*A capital Scot: microscopes and museums in Robert E. Grant's zoology (1815–1840) TOM QUICK The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 173–204 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000364 (About doi) Published Online on 09th June 2016*
Early nineteenth-century zoology in Britain has been characterized as determined by the ideological concerns of its proponents. Taking the zoologist Robert E. Grant as an exemplary figure in this regard, this article offers a differently nuanced account of the conditions under which natural-philosophical knowledge concerning animal life was established in post-Napoleonic Britain. Whilst acknowledging the ideological import of concepts such as force and law, it points to an additional set of concerns amongst natural philosophers – that of appropriate tool use in investigation. Grant's studies in his native Edinburgh relied heavily on the use of microscopes. On his arrival in London, however, he entered a culture in which a different set of objects – museum specimens – held greater persuasive power. This article relates changes in Grant's ideas and practices to the uneven emphases on microscopic and museological evidence amongst European, Scottish and English natural philosophers at this time. In so doing, it identifies the reliance of London-based natural philosophers on museology as constituting a limiting effect on the kinds of claim that Grant sought to make regarding the nature of life.
*Deceived by orchids: sex, science, fiction and Darwin JIM ENDERSBY The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 205–229 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000352 (About doi) Published Online on 09th June 2016*
Between 1916 and 1927, botanists in several countries independently resolved three problems that had mystified earlier naturalists – including Charles Darwin: how did the many species of orchid that did not produce nectar persuade insects to pollinate them? Why did some orchid flowers seem to mimic insects? And why should a native British orchid suffer ‘attacks’ from a bee? Half a century after Darwin's death, these three mysteries were shown to be aspects of a phenomenon now known as pseudocopulation, whereby male insects are deceived into attempting to mate with the orchid's flowers, which mimic female insects; the males then carry the flower's pollen with them when they move on to try the next deceptive orchid. Early twentieth-century botanists were able to see what their predecessors had not because orchids (along with other plants) had undergone an imaginative re-creation: Darwin's science was appropriated by popular interpreters of science, including the novelist Grant Allen; then H.G. Wells imagined orchids as killers (inspiring a number of imitators), to produce a genre of orchid stories that reflected significant cultural shifts, not least in the presentation of female sexuality. It was only after these changes that scientists were able to see plants as equipped with agency, actively able to pursue their own, cunning reproductive strategies – and to outwit animals in the process. This paper traces the movement of a set of ideas that were created in a context that was recognizably scientific; they then became popular non-fiction, then popular fiction, and then inspired a new science, which in turn inspired a new generation of fiction writers. Long after clear barriers between elite and popular science had supposedly been established in the early twentieth century, they remained porous because a variety of imaginative writers kept destabilizing them. The fluidity of the boundaries between makers, interpreters and publics of scientific knowledge was a highly productive one; it helped biology become a vital part of public culture in the twentieth century and beyond.
*Parasites, politics and public science: the promotion of biological control in Western Australia, 1900–1910 EDWARD DEVESON The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 231–258 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000327 (About doi) Published Online on 06th June 2016*
Biological control of arthropods emerged as a scientific enterprise in the late nineteenth century and the orchard industry of California was an early centre of expertise. In 1900, as the Australian colonies prepared for federation, each had a government entomologist attached to its agriculture department. The hiring of George Compere from California by the Western Australian Department of Agriculture began a controversial chapter in the early history of biological control that was linked to a late, local popularization of acclimatization. Compere became known as the ‘travelling entomologist’ and for a decade brought ‘parasites’ of pest insects from overseas and released them in Perth. His antagonistic disciplinary rhetoric and inflated claims for the ‘parasite theory’ created conflict with his counterparts in the eastern states. The resulting inter-state entomological controversy was played out in the press, revealing the political use of science for institutional and even state identity. It is a story of transnational exchanges, chance discoveries and popular public science: popular because of the promise of a simple, natural solution to agricultural insect pests and because of the public nature of the disputes it generated between the experts. This microcosm contributes to the global historiography of acclimatization, biological control, scientific exposition and the professionalization of agricultural science.
*J.G. Crowther's War: Institutional strife at the BBC and British Council ALLAN JONES The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 259–278 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000315 (About doi) Published Online on 14th April 2016*
Science writer, historian and administrator J.G. Crowther (1899–1983) had an uneasy relationship with the BBC during the 1920s and 1930s, and was regarded with suspicion by the British security services because of his left politics. Nevertheless the Second World War saw him working for ‘establishment’ institutions. He was closely associated with the BBC's Overseas Service and employed by the British Council's Science Committee. Both organizations found Crowther useful because of his wide, international knowledge of science and scientists. Crowther's political views, and his international aspirations for the British Council's Science Committee, increasingly embroiled him in an institutional conflict with the Royal Society and with its president, Sir Henry Dale, who was also chairman of the British Council's Science Committee. The conflict centred on the management of international scientific relations, a matter close Crowther's heart, and to Dale's. Dale considered that the formal conduct of international scientific relations was the Royal Society's business rather than the British Council's. Crowther disagreed, and eventually resigned from the British Council Science Committee in 1946. The article expands knowledge of Crowther by drawing on archival documents to elucidate a side of his career that is only lightly touched on in his memoirs. It shows that ‘Crowther's war’ was also an institutional war between the Science Committee of the British Council and the Royal Society. Crowther's unhappy experience of interference by the Royal Society plausibly accounts for a retreat from his pre-war view that institutional science should plan and manage BBC science broadcasts.
Essay Review
*Film lessons: early cinema for historians of science Jesse Olszynko-Gryn The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 279–286 doi: 10.1017/S000708741600039X (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016*
Despite much excellent work over the years, the vast history of scientific filmmaking is still largely unknown. Historians of science have long been concerned with visual culture, communication and the public sphere on the one hand, and with expertise, knowledge production and experimental practice on the other. Scientists, we know, drew pictures, took photographs and made three-dimensional models. Rather like models, films could not be printed in journals until the digital era, and this limited their usefulness as evidence. But that did not stop researchers from making movies for projection at conferences as well as in lecture halls, museums and other public venues, not to mention for breaking down into individual frames for analysis. Historians of science are more likely to be found in the library, archive or museum than the darkened screening room, and much work is still needed to demonstrate the major effects of cinema on scientific knowledge. Film may have taken as long to change science as other areas of social life, but one can begin to glimpse important ways in which ‘image machines’ (cameras, projectors and the like) were beginning to mediate between backstage experimental work and more public demonstration even around 1900.
Book Reviews
Klaus Hentschel, Visual Cultures in Science and Technology: A Comparative History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. x + 496. ISBN 978-0-19-871781-4. £60.00 (hardback). Omar W. Nasim The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 288–289 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000406 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
H. Floris Cohen, The Rise of Modern Science Explained: A Comparative History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. 301. ISBN 978-1-107-54560-1. £18.99 (paperback). Toby E. Huff The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 289–291 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000418 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Miguel A. Granada, Adam Mosley and Nicholas Jardine, Christoph Rothmann's Discourse on the Comet of 1585. An Edition and Translation with Accompanying Essays. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014. Pp. xx + 379. ISBN 978-90-04-26023-4. £115.00 (hardback).Víctor Navarro Brotóns, Disciplinas, Saberes y Prácticas: Filosofia Natural, Matemáticas y Astronomía en la Sociedad Española de la Época Moderna. València: Universitat de València, 2014. Pp. 496. ISBN 978-84-370-9446-5. £26.75 (paperback) Luís Miguel Carolino The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 292–293 doi: 10.1017/S000708741600042X (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Susannah Gibson, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? How Eighteenth-Century Science Disrupted the Natural Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 240. ISBN 978-0-19-870513-0. £16.99 (hardback). David Knight The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 293–294 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000431 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Innes M. Keighren, Charles W.J. Withers and Bill Bell, Travels into Print: Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray, 1773–1859. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 392. ISBN 978-0-226-42953-3. $45.00 (hardback) Eleni Loukopoulou The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 295–296 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000443 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Sarah Dewis, The Loudons and the Gardening Press: A Victorian Cultural Industry. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. xvi + 278. ISBN 978-1-4094-6922-3. £65.00 (hardback). Cristiana Oghina-Pavie The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 296–298 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000455 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Helen Cowie, Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Empathy, Education, Entertainment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. x + 256. ISBN 978-1-137-38443-0. £60.00 (hardback).Takashi Ito, London Zoo and the Victorians, 1828–1859. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014. Pp. xi + 204. ISBN 978-0-86193-321-1. £50.00 (hardback). Oliver Hochadel The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 298–300 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000467 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
David Gillott, Samuel Butler against the Professionals: Rethinking Lamarckism 1860–1900. London: Legenda, 2015. Pp. x + 198. ISBN 978-1-909662-25-4. £55.00 (hardback). Cristiano Turbil The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 300–301 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000479 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Melinda Baldwin, Making Nature: The History of a Scientific Journal. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 328. ISBN 978-0-226-26145-4. $45.00 (hardback). Matthew Wale The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 301–302 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000480 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Joris Vandenriessche, Evert Peeters and Kaat Wils (eds.), Scientists’ Expertise as Performance: Between State and Society, 1860–1960. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2015. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-1-8489-3527-3. £60.00 (hardback). William Thomas The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 303–304 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000492 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
M. Alper Yalçinkaya, Learned Patriots: Debating Science, State, and Society in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 304. ISBN 978-0-226-18420-3. $50.00 (hardback). Kostas Tampakis The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 304–306 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000509 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Vanessa Ogle, The Global Transformation of Time, 1870–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 288. ISBN 978-0-674-28614-6. $39.95/£29.95 (hardback). Scott Johnston The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 306–307 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000510 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Lynne Fallwell, Modern German Midwifery, 1885–1960. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013. Pp. xiii + 263. ISBN 978-1-84893-428-3. £60.00 (hardback). Aya Homei The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 308–309 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000522 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Robert Brain, The Pulse of Modernism: Physiological Aesthetics in Fin-de-Siècle Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. Pp. xxxii + 348. ISBN 978-0-295-99320-1. $50.00 (hardback). James F. Stark The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 309–311 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000534 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Edward Juler, Grown but Not Made: British Modernist Sculpture and the New Biology. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. Pp. 239. ISBN 978-0-7190-9032-4. £75.00 (hardback). Boris Jardine The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 311–312 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000546 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Kathryn Steen, The American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry: War and Politics, 1910–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 403. ISBN 978-1-4696-1290-4. £32.50 (paperback). Peter Reed The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 312–314 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000558 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Sarah Bridger, Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 350. ISBN 978-0-674-73682-5. £33.95 (hardback). Simone Turchetti The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 314–315 doi: 10.1017/S000708741600056X (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Simone Turchetti and Peder Roberts (eds.), The Surveillance Imperative: Geosciences during the Cold War and Beyond. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. xii + 278. ISBN 978-1-137-43872-0. £60.00 (hardback). Kristine C. Harper The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 315–317 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000571 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Scott H. Podolsky, The Antibiotic Era: Reform, Resistance, and the Pursuit of a Rational Therapeutics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. 328. ISBN 978-1-4214-1593-2. $34.95 (hardback). Daniele Cozzoli The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 317–318 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000583 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Doogab Yi, The Recombinant University: Genetic Engineering and the Emergence of Stanford Biotechnology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 304. ISBN: 978-0-2261-4383-5. $40.00 (cloth). Neeraja Sankaran The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 318–320 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000595 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Stephen G. Brush, Making 20th Century Science: How Theories Became Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 552. ISBN 978-0-19-997815-1. £25.99 (hardback). Jaume Navarro The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 320–321 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000601 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Olivier Darrigol, Physics and Necessity: Rationalist Pursuits from the Cartesian Past to the Quantum Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xv + 400. ISBN 978-0-19-871288-6. £39.00 (hardback). Kanta Dihal The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 321–322 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000613 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016
Janet Vertesi, Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 304. ISBN 978-0-226-15596-8. $35.00/£24.50 (hardback). Robert W. Smith The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 02 , June 2016, pp 322–323 doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000625 (About doi) Published Online on 29th June 2016