New Books in the History of Science
Episodes
Deirdre Loughridge & Thomas Patteson, "The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments" (Reaktion, 2026)
30 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Deirdre Loughridge & Dr. Thomas Patteson is a guided tour through centuries of in...
Raffaele Danna, "The Craft of Indo-Arabic Numerals: How Practical Arithmetic Shaped Commerce and Mathematics in Western Europe, 1200–1600" (Harvard UP, 2026)
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the thirteenth-century Mediterranean, commerce transformed as merchants shifted from Roman to Indo-Arabic numerals—an alternative that better fac...
Vin Nardizzi, "Marvellous Vegetables in the English Renaissance" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
John Gerard’s natural history of plants, The Herball (1597), is considered a failure in the history of science. Despite this reputation, it has endu...
Jim Downs, "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" (Harvard UP, 2023)
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Downs’ most recent book is Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. Professor Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-Nat...
Nabil Ali, "Gold from Newton's Apple Tree: Historical Recipes for Natural Inks, Paints, and Dyes" (Princeton UP, 2026)
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Flowering currant, ivy, Portuguese laurel, and woad might all have grown in a medieval garden, but it would have taken special expertise to extract an...
Kim Embrey, "Coca and the Victorians: From Botanical Curiosity to Regulated Drug, 1835–1912" (Transcript Publishing, 2025)
12 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The South American coca plant was established in 19th-century Britain as a medical product before it became a globally restricted drug. Drawing on bot...
Beans Velocci, "Sex Isn't Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary" (Duke UP, 2026)
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Sex Isn’t Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary (Duke UP, 2026), Beans Velocci traces the history of current high stakes attempts ...
Matthew P. Romaniello, "Europe's Laboratory: Climate and Health in Eighteenth-Century Russia" (Cornell UP, 2025)
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Europe's Laboratory: Climate and Health in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cornell UP, 2025) is a history of eighteenth-century naturalists and physician...
Douglas H. Erwin, "The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology" (Princeton UP, 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Origins of the New (Princeton University Press, 2026) presents a revolutionary approach to evolutionary success in all realms of life. In this g...
Dominik Berrens, "Naming New Things and Concepts in Early Modern Science: The Case of Natural History" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Naming new discoveries is central to science, and for centuries, Latin dominated this process. The resulting terminology still shapes modern science, ...
Katherine Harvey, "The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living" (Reaktion, 2026)
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We often think of medieval medicine as strange, unhygienic and unscientific, but The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Kather...
César A. Hidalgo, "The Infinite Alphabet: And the Laws of Knowledge" (Allen Lane, 2026)
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We all understand that knowledge shapes the fate of business and the growth of nations, but few of us are aware of the principles that govern its moti...
Susannah B. Mintz, "Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story" (Reaktion, 2026)
15 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story (Reaktion, 2026) proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Dr. Susannah B. Mintz refram...
Anne W. Johnson, "Mexico in Space: From La Raza Cósmica to the Space Race" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From Aztec sun stones to satellite launches, from muralist visions to dark sky parks, Mexico's engagement with outer space is fundamental to its ident...
Michael Bycroft, "Gems and the New Science: Matter and Value in the Scientific Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Gems and the New Science: Matter and Value in the Scientific Revolution (U Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Michael Bycroft argues that gems were connec...
Jacob Stegenga, "Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 2026), philosopher Jacob Stegenga breaks with the most domina...
Amelia Acker, "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" (MIT Press, 2025)
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We're so pleased to welcome Dr. Amelia Acker, author of Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms (MIT Press, 2025) to the New Books Netw...
Anna-Luna Post, "Galileo’s Fame: Science, Credibility, and Memory in the Seventeenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From the beginning of Galileo’s career, well before the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, his contemporaries took pains to shape his reputation...
David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history...
W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that ...
Howard Alan Israel, "Nazi Anatomy Lessons: A Dissection of Evil" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2026)
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What if the tools that shaped your life’s work were rooted in unimaginable evil? In this haunting episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Dr. Howar...
Andrew Billing, "Animal Rhetoric and Natural Science in Eighteenth-century Liberal Political Writing" (Routledge, 2023)
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Animal Rhetoric and Natural Science in Eighteenth-century Liberal Political Writing: Political Zoologies of the French Enlightenment (Routledge, 202...
Jennifer Vail, "Friction: A Biography" (Harvard UP, 2026)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Friction, the force that resists motion, is synonymous with difficulty and complication. If you’ve ever replaced tires worn smooth by the road or re...
Andreas Killen, "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War" (Harper, 2023)
01 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this eye-opening chronicle of scientific research on the brain in the early Cold War era, the acclaimed historian Andreas Killen traces the complex...
John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)
31 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to John L. Rudolph about his book Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should) (Oxford UP, 2023). Few people question the importance of ...
Emily Mendenhall, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long COVID" (U California Press, 2026)
24 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Inspired by her work with long COVID patients, in Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long COVID (U California Press, 2026) medical anthr...
Alex Wellerstein, "The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age" (Harper, 2025)
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was, arguably, the most controversial decision of the 20th century. The responsibility for that...
Steve Ramirez, "How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past" (Princeton UP, 2025)
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain...
Clare Griffin, "Mixing Medicines: The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
11 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Clare Griffin's book Mixing Medicines: The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022) introduces the reader to the dynamic...
Alison Bashford, "Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
10 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Why did Isaac Newton read books on chiromancy, the occult science of hand reading that revealed the secrets of the soul? Why did Charles Darwin claim ...
Jim Endersby, "The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology's Imaginary Futures, 1900-1935" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology’s Imaginary Futures, 1900–1935 by Jim Endersby In the early twentieth century, varied audiences took biology...
Mike Jay, "Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind" (Yale UP, 2023)
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Jay's Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind (Yale UP, 2023) is a provocative and original history of the scientists and writers...
Amit Varshizky, "The Metaphysics of Race: Science and Faith in the Nazi Worldview" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Metaphysics of Race seeks to reframe debates on the conflicting scientific and spiritual traditions that underpinned the Nazi worldview, showing ...
Kate Clancy, "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation" (Princeton UP, 2023)
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once...
Donna J. Drucker, "Fertility Technology" (MIT Press, 2023)
29 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A concise overview of fertility technology—its history, practical applications, and ethical and social implications around the world. In the late 18...
Anne Lawrence-Mathers, "The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts" (Yale UP, 2025)
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Medieval Europe was preoccupied with magic. From the Carolingian Empire to Renaissance Italy and Tudor England, great rulers, religious figures, and s...
Thomas Haigh on the History of “AI” as a Brand
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair of History and affiliate of the Department of Computer Science at Univ...
Taylor McCall, "The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor McCall's The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe (Reaktion, 2023) is the first history of medieval European anatomical images. Richly illustr...
Thomas Morel, "Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Morel joins Jana Byars to tell the story of subterranean geometry, a forgotten discipline that developed in the silver mines of early modern Eu...
Judith L. Pearson, "Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement" (Mayo Clinic Press, 2025)
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There was a time when women's health was marginalized. There was a time when breast cancer wasn't discussed. There was a time when October wasn't pink...
Ellen Muehlberger, "Things Unseen: Essays on Evidence, Knowledge, and the Late Ancient World" (U California Press, 2025)
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you know the nature of another person: who she is, or what she is capable of? In four exploratory essays, a seasoned historian examines the ...
Al Posamentier, "Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians" (Prometheus, 2020)
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Alfred S. Posamentier, a co-author (with Christian Spreitzer) of Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians (Prome...
Jenny C. Mann, "The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime" (Princeton UP, 2021)
08 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University ...
Eram Alam, "The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare" (JHU Press, 2025)
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For more than 60 years, the United States has trained fewer physicians than it needs, relying instead on the economically expedient option of soliciti...
Rick A López, "Rooted in Place: Botany, Indigeneity, and Art in the Construction of Mexican Nature, 1570-1914" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since the first moment of conquest, colonizers and the colonized alike in Mexico confronted questions about what it meant to be from this place, what ...
Garrett Hardin’s Tragic Environmentalism
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An ecologist in California claimed that the iron laws of nature locked humanity into destroying our environment. This meant that we must take drastic ...
Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another ta...
Dagmar Wujastyk, "Indian Alchemy: Sources and Contexts" (Oxford UP, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Indian Alchemy: Sources and Contexts (Oxford UP, 2025) serves to expand readers' understanding of what it meant to practice alchemy on the Indian su...
Jeffrey D. Sharon, "The Great Balancing Act: An Insider's Guide to the Human Vestibular System" (Columbia UP, 2025)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What's the secret to keeping your balance? The ear does more than hear: it helps us stay stable by perceiving movements and gravity. Elegant sensors d...
Kalle Kananoja, "Healing Knowledge in Atlantic Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Healing Knowledge in Atlantic Africa (Cambridge UP, 2021), Kalle Kananoja tells the story of how pre-colonial communities throughout the west coa...
David Bressoud, "Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas" (Princeton UP, 2019)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas (Princeton UP, 2019) takes readers on a remarkable journey through hundreds of years to tell the story ...
Julia Ross Cummiskey, "Virus Research in Twentieth-Century Uganda: Between Local and Global" (Ohio UP, 2024)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Virus Research in Twentieth-Century Uganda: Between Local and Global (Ohio UP, 2024) presents the stories of scientists at the Uganda Virus Research...
Daniel J. Sherman, "Sensations: French Archaeology Between Science and Spectacle, 1890-1940" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Sarah talks to Daniel J. Sherman about his most recent book, Sensations: French Archaeology Between Science and Spectacle, 1890-1940...
Spike Bucklow, "The Year: An Ecology of the Zodiac" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Spike Bucklow joins Jana Byars to talk about The Year: An Ecology of the Zodiac (Reaktion, 2025). This delightful book defies genre. It is a journey...
Dan Roche, "Eyes by Hand: Prosthetics of Art and Healing" (MIT Press, 2025)
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eyes by Hand: Prosthetics of Art and Healing (MIT Press, 2025) is a book about artificial eyes—about the artisans and artists who make them, and ab...
Anne Lawrence-Mathers, "Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we speak to Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Professor of History at the University of Reading about her new book Medieval Meteorology: Foreca...
John Lisle, "Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The inside story of the CIA’s secret mind control project, MKULTRA, using never-before-seen testimony from the perpetrators themselves.Sidney Gottli...
Agnes Arnold-Forster, "The Cancer Problem: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2021)
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agnes Arnold-Forster's book The Cancer Problem: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford UP, 2021) offers the first medical, cultural, and s...
Mario Livio and Jack Szostak, "Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest for Cosmic Life" (Basic Books, 2024)
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For a long time, scientists have wondered how life has emerged from inanimate chemistry, and whether Earth is the only place where it exists. Charles ...
Raphael Cormack, "Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult" (Norton, 2025)
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An international history of the uncanny in the 1920s and 1930s. The interwar period was a golden age for the occult. Spiritualists, clairvoyants, fak...
Joshua Nall, "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2019)
17 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re hearing an awful lot about the fraught relationship between science and media. In his book, News from M...
Thomas Kemple, “Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
16 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s w...
Hannah Star Rogers, "Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
'Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)' by Hannah Star Rogers When I sat down with Hannah Star Rogers to discuss her new book...
Lewis A. Grossman, "Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America" (Oxford UP, 2021)
09 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout American history, lawmakers have limited the range of treatments available to patients, often with the backing of the medical establishment...
Emilio Elizalde, "The True Story of Modern Cosmology: Origins, Main Actors and Breakthroughs" (Springer, 2021)
09 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This book tells the story of how, over the past century, dedicated observers and pioneering scientists achieved our current understanding of the unive...
Athena Aktipis, "The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer" (Princeton UP, 2020)
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of the forces driving cancer, we don’t necessarily think of evolution. But evolution and cancer are closely linked because the histori...
Christa Kuljian, "Our Science, Ourselves: How Gender, Race, and Social Movements Shaped the Study of Science" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Christa Kuljian arrived on the Harvard College campus as a first-year student in the fall of 1980 with copies of Our Bodies, Ourselves and Ms. ...
Book Talk 67 : The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is reliable knowledge? Listen to philosopher Michael Strevens, author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science, to und...
Jessica Ratcliff, "Monopolizing Knowledge: The East India Company and Britain's Second Scientific Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2025))
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the book Monopolizing Knowledge: The East India Company and Britain’s Second Scientific Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2025), author Jessica Ratclif...
How ClioVis is Transforming Education and Historical Research
19 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I’m speaking with Marcus Golding, historian and Director of Educational Operations at ClioVis. ClioVis is an incredible software and learnin...
Meegan Kennedy, "Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism" (Oxford UP, 2025)
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Meegan Kennedy examines a revolutionary period in microscopi...
Edward Tenner, "Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays in Unintended Consequences" (APS Press, 2025)
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did the addition of lifeboats after the Titanic shipwreck contribute to another tragedy in Chicago harbor three years later? How efficient are wil...
Robert G. Morrison, "Merchants of Knowledge: Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe" (Stanford UP, 2025)
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1450 and 1550, a remarkable century of intellectual exchange developed across the Eastern Mediterranean. As Renaissance Europe depended on kno...
Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, "The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease" (U of California Press, 2025)
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Brent Z. Kaup & Dr. Kelly F. Austi...
Patrick Luiz Sullivan De Oliveira, "Ascending Republic: The Ballooning Revival in Nineteenth-Century France" (MIT Press, 2025)
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On August 27, 1783, a large crowd gathered in Paris to watch the first ascent of a hydrogen balloon. Despite the initial feverish enthusiasm, by the m...
Matthew Wisnioski on the History of the Idea and Culture of “Innovation” in the United States
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Wisnioski, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, about his new book, Eve...
Sarah Bull, "Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is the relationship between medicine and commerce? In Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain (Cambrid...
Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper, "Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins" (University of Chicago Press, 2025)
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A thrilling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories, comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very notions of space, time, and reali...
Judith Weisenfeld, "Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery’s Wake" (NYU Press, 2025)
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the decades after the end of slavery, African Americans were committed to southern state mental hospitals at higher rates as white psychiatrists li...
Bernd Roeck, "The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance" (Princeton UP, 2025)
22 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I’m speaking with Bernd Roeck about his book, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance (Princeton University Press, 2025)....
Jeremy Stolow, "Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography" (MIT Press, 2025)
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Jeremy Stolow is the first book of its kind: an extended historical, anthropological, and...
Laura Frances Goffman, "Disorder and Diagnosis: Health and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Arabia" (Stanford UP, 2024)
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Disorder and Diagnosis: Health and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Arabia (Stanford UP, 2024) offers a social and political history of medic...
Violet Moller, "Inside the Stargazer's Palace: The Transformation of Science in 16th-Century Europe" (OneWorld, 2024)
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption. A new age was coming into vi...
Kathleen Miller, ed., "Doctrine and Disease in the British and Spanish Colonial World" (Penn State UP, 2025)
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kathleen Miller talks about her new edited volume, Doctrine and Disease in British and Spanish Colonial World (Penn State University Press, 2025). ...
Beth Linker on Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian Beth Linker, Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the...
Agustín Fuentes, "Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary" (Princeton UP, 2025)
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Being human entails an astonishingly complex interplay of biology and culture, and while there are important differences between women and men, there ...
Jack Ashby, "Nature's Memory: Behind the Scenes at the World’s Natural History Museums" (Penguin, 2025)
31 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Nature's Memory: Behind the Scenes at the World’s Natural History Museums (Penguin, 2025), zoologist Jack Ashby shares hidden stories behind th...
Matthew Shindell, "Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The first book to combine exquisite cartographical charts of the Moon with a thorough exploration of the Moon’s role in popular culture, science, an...
From Hal to Siri: How Computers Learned to Speak
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Cul...
Andrew Griebeler, "Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A richly illustrated account of how premodern botanical illustrations document evolving knowledge about plants and the ways they were studied in the p...
Matthew Daniel Eddy, "Media and the Mind: Art, Science, and Notebooks as Paper Machines, 1700-1830" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We often think of reason as a fixed entity, as a definitive body of facts that do not change over time. But during the Enlightenment, reason also was ...
Howard Chiang, "After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China" (Columbia UP, 2018)
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Howard Chiang’s new book is a masterful study of the relationship between sexual knowledge and Chinese modernity. After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, ...
Scientists Cooperate while Humanists Ruminate (EF, JP)
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 2021, John and Elizabeth sat down with Brandeis string theorist Albion Lawrence to discuss cooperation versus solitary study across discipli...
Sally King, "Menstrual Myth Busting: The Case of the Hormonal Female" (Policy Press, 2025)
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Menstrual Myth Busting: The Case of the Hormonal Female (Policy Press, 2025), Dr. Sally King interrogates the diagnostic label of premenstrual sy...
William Max Nelson, "Enlightenment Biopolitics: A History of Race, Eugenics, and the Making of Citizens" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Enlightenment Biopolitics (U Chicago Press, 2024), historian William Max Nelson pursues the ambitious task of tracing the context in which biopol...
Andrew Janiak, "The Enlightenment's Most Dangerous Woman: Émilie Du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy" (Oxford UP, 2024)
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Enlightenment's Most Dangerous Woman: Émilie du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2024) introduces the work and legacy ...
Anne Greenwood Mackinney, "Nature on Paper: Documenting Science in Prussia, 1770-1850" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2024)
15 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past two decades, natural things—especially those collected, exchanged, studied, and displayed in museums, such as animals, plants, mineral...
M. Chirimuuta, "The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience" (MIT Press, 2024)
10 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This book is available open access here. The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2024), Maz...
Anthony Grafton, "Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa" (Harvard UP, 2023)
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa (Harvard UP, 2023) is a revelatory new account of the magus―the learned magician―and his place i...
Christos Lynteris, "Visual Plague: The Emergence of Epidemic Photography" (MIT Press, 2022)
02 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How epidemic photography during a global pandemic of bubonic plague contributed to the development of modern epidemiology and our concept of the “pa...