New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
Episodes
Karin Rosemblatt, "The Science and Politics of Race in Mexico and the United States, 1910–1950" (UNC Press, 2018)
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Karin Rosemblatt’s new book, The Science and Politics of Race in Mexico and the United States, 1910–1950 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018...
Clayton Whisnant, "Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945" (Harrington Park Press, 2016)
08 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed key developments in LGBT history, including the growth of the world's first hom...
Eric Topol, "Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again" (Basic Books, 2019)
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Medicine has lost its humanity. Doctors no longer have the time to make personal connections with their patients. In his new book Deep Medicine: How A...
Peter Daou, "Digital Civil War: Confronting the Far-Right Menace" (Melville House, 2019)
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Democratic political adviser Peter Daou has long toggled between the world of presidential campaigns and online activism. He worked for the presidenti...
Chris Bernhardt, "Quantum Computing for Everyone" (MIT Press, 2019)
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked with Chris Bernhardt about his book Quantum Computing for Everyone (MIT Press, 2019). This is a book that involves a lot of mathematics...
Nikolai Krementsov, "With and Without Galton: Vasilii Florinskii and the Fate of Eugenics in Russia" (Open Book Publishers, 2018)
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With and Without Galton: Vasilii Florinskii and the Fate of Eugenics in Russia (Open Book Publishers, 2018), Professor Nikolai Krementsov’s recent h...
Crystal Abidin, "Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online" (Emerald Publishing, 2018)
29 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be famous on the Internet? How do people become Internet celebrities, and what can that celebrity be used to do? Dr. Crystal Abid...
James L. A. Webb, "The Long Struggle against Malaria in Tropical Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2016)
24 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It is estimated that malaria kills between 650,000 to 1.2 million people every year; experts believe that nearly 90 percent of these deaths occur in A...
Christof Spieler, "Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US Transit" (Island Press, 2018)
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Christof Spieler, PE, LEED AP, is a Vice President and Director of Planning at Huitt-Zollars and a lecturer in Architecture and Engineering at Rice Un...
Kate Brown, "Manuel for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future" (Norton, 2019)
19 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We cannot learn from disasters we do not yet understand. That conviction motivated historian Kate Brown to conduct groundbreaking research into nuclea...
Emily Dawson, "Equity, Exclusion and Everyday Science Learning: The Experiences of Minoritised Groups" (Routledge, 2019)
18 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Who is excluded from science? What is the role of museums in this exclusion? In Equity, Exclusion and Everyday Science Learning: The Experiences of Mi...
Christopher Preston, "The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution, Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World" (MIT Press, 2018)
18 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution, Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World (MIT Press, 2018), Dr. Christopher Preston argues that...
Lukas Engelmann, "Mapping AIDS: Visual Histories of an Enduring Epidemic" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
17 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What role do visual media play in establishing a medical phenomenon? Who mobilizes these representations, and to what end? In Mapping AIDS: Visual His...
Robert A. Voeks, "The Ethnobotany of Eden: Rethinking the Jungle Medicine Narrative" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
04 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jungle medicine: it's everywhere, from chia seeds to ginseng tea to CBD oil. In the US, what was once the province of counter culture has moved squa...
Tom Wheeler, "From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future" (Brookings, 2019)
27 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It's easy to get sidetracked while writing a book. But imagine being interrupted by the President of the United States. That happened to Tom Wheeler, ...
Tina Sikka, "Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable" (Springer, 2019)
21 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How can feminist theory help address the climate crisis? In Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (Springer Verlag...
Michael C. Desch, "Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security" (Princeton UP, 2019)
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Many have read and debated “How Political Science became Irrelevant” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The author of that piece is Michael C. ...
Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more de...
Gregory Dawes, "Galileo and the Conflict between Religion and Science" (Routledge, 2016)
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Open conflict between religion and science may not be inevitable, but a germ of discord resides in some of the fundamental commitments of both; in thi...
Kartik Hosanagar, "A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives" (Viking, 2019)
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Our guest today is Kartik Hosanagar, the author of A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay...
Kate Ervine, "Carbon" (Polity, 2018)
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The crisis of global warming overwhelms the imagination with its urgency, yet more than ever we need patient, clear-sighted. and careful assessments o...
David Colander and Craig Freedman, "Where Economics Went Wrong: Chicago's Abandonment of Classical Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2018)
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you are reading this, you have probably run into the "Chicago" model at some point or another, in terms of public policy, orthodox modern finance, ...
Emily Baum, "The Invention of Madness: State, Society, and the Insane in Modern China" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Baum’s The Invention of Madness: State, Society, and the Insane in Modern China, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2018 as part ...
Rick Van Noy, "Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As climate change politics abound, Dr. Rick Van Noy’s Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South (University of Georgia Press, ...
James Schwoch, "Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier" (U Illinois Press, 2018)
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It's been called the first Internet. In the nineteenth century, the telegraph spun a world wide web of cables and poles, carrying electronic signals w...
Michael Ruse, "The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2018)
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What accounts for the antagonism between Christianity and Darwinism? For Michael Ruse, a professor of the history and philosophy of science at Florida...
Thomas F. Gieryn, "Truth-Spots: How Places Make People Believe" (U Chicago, 2018)
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Is the existence of truth coming to a screeching halt? Does truth still exist? In Truth-Spots: How Places Make People Believe (University of Chicago P...
Trent MacNamara, "Birth Control and American Modernity: A History of Popular Ideas" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Birth control, and the access to it, has continued to be a divisive issue in American political and social life. While birth control has almost become...
Geraldine Heng, "The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
26 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press 2018), Geraldine Heng collects a remarkable array of medieval approac...
Joy Lisi Rankin, "A People’s History of Computing in the United States" (Harvard UP, 2018).
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We know, perhaps too well, the innovation-centric history of personal computing. Yet, computer users were not necessarily microelectronics consumers f...
Jieun Baek, "North Korea's Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society" (Yale UP, 2016)
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With recent events having raised hopes that significant change may be afoot in North Korea, it is important to remember that DPRK society has in fact ...
Peter Hotez, "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Peter Hotez is a pediatrician-scientist who develops vaccines for neglected tropical diseases affecting the worlds poor. He is also the father of ...
Adrienne Mayor, "Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology" (Princeton UP, 2018)
06 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by the MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, t...
Matthew Longo, "The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen after 9/11" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Matthew Longo takes the reader on an unusual journey, at least within political theory, since his work combines a normative political...
John Torpey, "The Three Axial Ages: Moral, Material, Mental" (Rutgers UP, 2017)
30 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since its initial postulation by Karl Jaspers, the concept of an “axial age” in the development of human thought and religion has exerted enormous...
Jan English-Lueck, "Cultures@SiliconValley: Second Edition" (Stanford UP, 2017)
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Silicon Valley is understood to be one of the most fast-paced regions on earth, where innovation and upheaval are part and parcel of daily life. Imagi...
Is Social Media Killing Democracy? with Regina Rini
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Regia Rini is the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Moral and Social Cognition at the York University. Her research resides at the intersections...
Nicholas Bauch, "Geography of Digestion: Biotechnology and the Kellogg Enterprise" (U California Press, 2017)
11 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
While most people in the US are familiar with the ubiquitous Kellogg cereal brand, few know how it relates to US geography, science and technology aro...
Alex Bentley and Michael O'Brien, "The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms" (MIT Press, 2017)
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Our evolutionary success, according to co-authors Alex Bentley and Michael O'Brien, lies in our ability to acquire cultural wisdom and teach it to the...
Julian Gill-Peterson, "Histories of the Transgender Child" (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With transgender rights front and center in American politics, media, and culture, the pervasive myth still exists that today’s transgender children...
Megan Finn, "Documenting Aftermath: Information Infrastructures in the Wake of Disasters" (MIT Press, 2018)
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Megan Finn's Documenting Aftermath: Information Infrastructures in the Wake of Disasters (MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating examination of how informa...
Lindsey Fitzharris, "The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine" (Scientific American, 2017)
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Lister changed the world of medicine. In her book The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medici...
Paul A. Offit, "Do You Believe in Magic?: Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural" (Harper, 2014)
28 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Is alternative medicine quackery? In the book Do You Believe in Magic? Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural: A Look Behind the Curtain (Harpe...
Audra J. Wolfe, "Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)
27 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Audra J. Wolfe, is a Philadelphia-based writer, editor and historian. Her book Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science(J...
Perrin Selcer, "The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment" (Columbia UP, 2018)
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Having been born into a world in which people knew about anthropogenic global warming, I grew up in the “global environment.” Although the categor...
Pamela E. Klassen, "The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary's Journey on Indigenous Land" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
At the dawn of the radio age in the 1920s, Frederick Du Vernet—Anglican archbishop and self-declared scientist—announced a psychic channel by whic...
Suman Seth, "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
19 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Suman Seth's new book Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2018)provides a n...
Mark Rice, "Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru" (UNC Press, 2018)
11 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Speaking at a 1913 National Geographic Society gala, Hiram Bingham III, the American explorer celebrated for finding the “lost city” of the Andes ...
Paola Bertucci, "Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France" (Yale UP, 2018)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Paola Bertucci's Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (Yale University Press, 2018) is an innovative new look...
McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...
Alireza Doostdar, "The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny" (Princeton UP, 2018)
05 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Winner of the Middle East Studies Association’s 2018 Albert Hourani Book Award, Alireza Doostdar’s The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Scie...
Amanda H. Lynch and Siri Veland, "Urgency in the Anthropocene" (MIT Press, 2018)
03 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Amanda Lynch and Siri Veland’s Urgency in the Anthropocene(MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating and trenchant analysis of the core beliefs and ideas th...
Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers, "The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science, and the Great War" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The prologue to The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science, and the Great War (University of Chicago Press, 2018) beg...
Michael E. Staub, “The Mismeasure of Minds: Debating Race and Intelligence Between Brown and The Bell Curve” (UNC Press, 2018)
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision required desegregation of America’s schools, but it also set in motion an agonizing multi-decade deb...
Shobita Parthasarathy, “Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Shobita Parthas...
Steven Shaviro, “Discognition” (Repeater Books, 2016)
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Shaviro’s book Discognition (Repeater Books, 2016) opens with a series of questions: What is consciousness? How does subjective experience oc...
Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes, “A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
If the universe was even slightly different in some of its fundamental physical properties, life could not exist – such is the claim of ‘fine tuni...
David P. Barash, “Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are” (Oxford UP, 2018)
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Human beings have long seen themselves as the center of the universe, as specially-created creatures who are anointed as above and beyond the natural ...
Andrew C. A. Elliott, “Is That a Big Number?” (Oxford UP, 2018)
09 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew C. A. Elliott‘s Is That a Big Number? (Oxford University Press, 2018) is a book that those of us who feast on numbers will absolutely adore,...
Anindita Banerjee, “Russian Science Fiction Literature and Cinema: A Critical Reader” (Academic Studies Press, 2018)
08 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Russian Science Fiction Literature and Cinema: A Critical Reader (Academic Studies Press, 2018) offers a compelling investigation of the genre whose ...
Raymond Boyle, “The Talent Industry: Television, Cultural Intermediaries and New Digital Pathways” (Palgrave, 2018)
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What are the hidden structures of the television industry? In The Talent Industry: Television, Cultural Intermediaries and New Digital Pathways (Palgr...
Daniel Stolz, “The Lighthouse and the Observatory: Islam, Science, and Empire in Late Ottoman Egypt” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Both a history of science and a history of Islam, The Lighthouse and the Observatory: Islam, Science, and Empire in Late Ottoman Egypt (Cambridge Univ...
Mike Ananny, “Networked Press Freedom: Creating Infrastructures For a Public Right to Hear” (MIT Press, 2018)
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Networked Press Freedom: Creating Infrastructures For a Public Right to Hear (MIT Press, 2018), journalism professor Mike Ananny provides a new fr...
J. Obert, A. Poe, A. Sarat, eds., “The Lives of Guns” (Oxford UP, 2018)
01 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What if guns “are not merely carriers of action, but also actors themselves?” That’s the question that animates and unites Jonathan Obert‘s an...
Nathan K. Finney and Tyrell O. Mayfield, “Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics” (Naval Institute Press, 2018)
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics (Naval Institute Press, 2018), edited by Nathan K. Finney and Tyrell O. Mayf...
Caitlin C. Rosenthal, “Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management” (Harvard UP, 2018)
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The familiar narrative of American business development begins in the industrial North, where paternalistic factory owners, committed to a kind of Pro...
N. M. Sambaluk, “The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security” (Naval Institute Press, 2015)
29 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Many people place the beginning of the American space program at 7:28pm, October 4, 1957 – the moment the Soviet Union launched the first satellite,...
Hugh Cagle, “Assembling the Tropics: Science and Medicine in Portugal’s Empire, 1450-1700” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
22 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Assembling the Tropics: Science and Medicine in Portugal’s Empire, 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2018) by Hugh Cagle is an exciting analysi...
Lee Humphreys, “The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life” (MIT Press, 2018)
19 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Physical journals, scrapbooks, and photo albums all offer their owners the opportunity to chronicle both mundane and extravagant events. But unlike so...
Wade Roush, ed., “Twelve Tomorrows” (MIT Press, 2018)
18 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Science fiction is, at its core, about tomorrow—exploring through stories what the universe may look like one or 10 or a million years in the future...
Yulia Frumer, “Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan” (U Chicago Press, 2018)
17 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Yulia Frumer’s new book follows roughly three hundred years of transformations in how time was conceptualized, measured, and materialized in Japan. ...
Robert A. Wilson, “The Eugenic Mind Project” (MIT Press, 2017)
15 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For most of us, eugenics — the “science of improving the human stock” — is a thing of the past, commonly associated with Nazi Germany and gove...
Rachel Z. Arndt, “Beyond Measure” (Sarabande Books, 2018)
12 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Our world today is full of algorithms and metrics designed to help us keep up, to keep track, to keep going. New devices, such as the smartwatch, now ...
Dániel Margócsy, et al., “The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions” (Brill, 2018)
11 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions (Brill, 2018) is a masterful...
Theodore M. Porter, “Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity” (Princeton UP, 2018)
11 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity (Princeton University Press, 2018), Theodore Porter uncovers the unfamiliar origin...
Hervé Guillemain, “Schizophrenics in the Twentieth Century: The Side Effects of History” (Alma, 2018)
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Schizophrènes au XXe siècle: des effets secondaires de l’histoire [Schizophrenics in the Twentieth Century: The Side Effects of History] is a stro...
Benjamin R. Siegel, “Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
05 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his first book Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India (Cambridge University Press 2018), historian Benjamin Robert Siegel ex...
Peter Harries-Jones, “Upside-Down Gods: Gregory Bateson’s World of Difference” (Fordham UP, 2016)
04 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The work of polymath Gregory Bateson has long been the road to cybernetics travelled by those approaching this trans-disciplinary field from the direc...
Byron Reese, “The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity” (Simon & Schuster, 2018)
04 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity (Simon & Schuster, 2018), futurist, technologist, and C...
Cameron B. Strang, “Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500-1850” (UNC Press, 2018)
03 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Cameron Strang’s Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500-1850 (University of North Carolina Pre...
P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018)
02 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, outlines the history of social m...
Hilary A. Smith, “Forgotten Disease: Illnesses Transformed in Chinese Medicine” (Stanford UP, 2017)
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Hilary A. Smith’s new book examines the evolution of a Chinese disease concept, foot qi (jiao qi) from its documented origins in the fourth century ...
Megan Raby, “American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science” (UNC Press, 2017)
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
American science and empire have a long mutual history. In American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science (University of North Carolina...
Andrew J. Hogan, “Life Histories of Genetic Disease: Patterns and Prevention in Postwar Medical Genetics” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2016)
13 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How did clinicians learn to see the human genome? In Life Histories of Genetic Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), Andrew J. Hogan makes t...
Rebecca Reich, “State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature and Dissent After Stalin” (Northern Illinois UP, 2018)
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature and Dissent After Stalin (Northern Illinois University Press, 2018), Rebecca Reich argues t...
Megan Ward, “Seeming Human: Artificial Intelligence and Victorian Realist Character” (OSU Press, 2018)
07 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence and Victorian literature: these two notions seem incompatible. AI brings us to the age of information and technology, whereas ...
N.A.J. Taylor and R. Jacobs, eds., “Reimagining Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Nuclear Humanities in the Post-Cold War” (Routledge, 2017)
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
N.A.J. Taylor and Robert Jacobs,’s edited volume Reimagining Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Nuclear Humanities in the Post-Cold War (Routledge, 2017) deve...
G. Mitman, M. Armiero and R. S. Emmett (eds.), “Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene” (U Chicago Press, 2018)
29 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene (University of Chicago Press, 2018) curates fifteen objects that might serve as evidence...
Michelle Perro and Vincanne Adams, “What’s Making Our Children Sick?” (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017)
23 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Pediatrician and integrative medicine practitioner Michelle Perro, MD, has been treating an increasing number of children with complex chronic illness...
Paul Offit, “Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren’t Your Best Source of Health Information” (Columbia UP, 2018)
17 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
You should never trust celebrities, politicians, or activists for health information. Why? Because they are not scientists! Scientists often cannot co...
Julie A. Cohn, “The Grid: Biography of an American Technology” (MIT Press, 2017)
15 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Though usually a background concern, the aging U.S. electric grid has lately been on the minds of both legislators and consumers. Congress wants to en...
Yves Citton, “The Ecology of Attention” (Polity Press, 2017)
13 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We are arguably living in the midst of a form of economy where attention has become a key resource and value, labor, class, and currency are being rec...
Dorothy H. Crawford, “Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped our History” (Oxford UP, 2018)
09 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The history of mankind is interlinked with microbes. As humans evolved and became more advanced, microbes evolved right along with us. Through infecti...
Casey Walsh, “Virtuous Waters: Mineral Springs, Bathing, and Infrastructure in Mexico” (U California Press, 2018).
02 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Water politics have long figured prominently in Mexico, and scholars have addressed such critical topics as irrigation, dam and canal building, and re...
Courtney Fullilove, “The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
31 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture (University of Chicago Press, 2017) examines the social and political history of how...
Sabina Leonelli, “Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study” (U Chicago Press, 2016)
27 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Commentators have been forecasting the eclipse of hypothesis-driven science and the rise of a new ‘data-driven’ science for some time now. Harkeni...
Pablo Gomez, “The Experiential Caribbean: Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic” (UNC Press, 2017).
24 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Pablo Gomez‘s The Experiential Caribbean: Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) exa...
David Peter Stroh, “Systems Thinking For Social Change” (Chelsea Green, 2015)
20 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
While Systems Thinking has enjoyed an increasing amount of societal influence through work of such practitioner/authors as Peter Senge, it is also tru...
Randi Hutter Epstein, “Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything” (Norton, 2018)
18 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Metabolism, behavior, sleep, mood swings, the immune system, fighting, fleeing, puberty, and sex: these are just a few of the things our bodies contro...
Eli Maor, “Music by the Numbers: From Pythagoras to Schoenberg” (Princeton UP, 2018)
18 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us have heard of the math-music connection, but Eli Maor’s Music by the Numbers: From Pythagoras to Schoenberg (Princeton University Press, ...