New Books in the History of Science
Episodes
Beth Linker, "Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America" (Princeton UP, 2024)
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century's worth of nude "posture" photos of college stu...
Ruth A. Morgan, "Climate Change and International History: Climate Diplomacy in the Global North and South Since 1950" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
16 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring how climate change has configured the international arena since the 1950s, Climate Change and International History: Negotiating Science, G...
Lorraine Daston, "Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate" (Columbia Global Reports, 2023)
10 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate (Columbia Global Reports, 2023), Lorraine Daston, Director Emerita of the Max Planck Institute for th...
Kenneth Miller, "Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep" (Hachette Books, 2023)
08 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we sleep? How can we improve our sleep? A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn...
Alan Bollard, "Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars" (Oxford UP, 2020)
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wartime is not just about military success. Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars (Oxford UP, 2020) tel...
Jennifer Evans, "Men's Sexual Health in Early Modern England" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)
02 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How did men cope with sexual health issues in early modern England? In Men's Sexual Health in Early Modern England (Amsterdam University Press, 2023...
Sara J. Grossman, "Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy" (Duke UP, 2023)
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy (Duke UP, 2023), Sara J. Grossman explores how env...
Alison M. Downham Moore, "The French Invention of Menopause and the Medicalisation of Women's Ageing" (Oxford UP, 2022)
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The French Invention of Menopause and the Medicalisation of Women's Ageing (Oxford University Press, 2022), Alison Downham Moore discusses her c...
Chen-Pang Yeang, "Transforming Noise. A History of Its Science and Technology from Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors, 1900-1955" (2023)
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the concept of noise is employed to characterize random fluctuations in general. Before the twentieth century, however, noise only meant distur...
Elinor Cleghorn, "Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World" (Dutton, 2022)
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. Over centuries, women’s bodies have been demonised and demeaned until we feared them, felt...
Camillo Leonardi, "Speculum Lapidum: A Renaissance Treatise on the Healing Properties of Gemstones" (Penn State UP, 2023)
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
First published in Venice in 1502, Camillo Leonardi’s Speculum Lapidum is an encyclopedic summary of all classical and medieval sources of lithoth...
Catherine Powell-Warren, "Gender and Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science: Agnes Block, Botany, and Networks in the Dutch 17th Century" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jana Byars speaks with Catherine Powell-Warren about Gender and Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science: Agnes Block, Botany, and Netw...
The Future of Images of Human Evolution
20 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We are all familiar with the “march of progress” image - the representation of evolution that depicts a series of apelike creatures becoming progr...
Karen C. Pinto, "Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration" (U Chicago Press, 2016)
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The history of Islamic mapping is one of the new frontiers in the history of cartography. Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration (University of Chic...
Mark Monmonier, "Connections and Content: Reflections on Networks and the History of Cartography" (ESRI Press, 2019)
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Connections and Content: Reflections on Networks and the History of Cartography (ESRI Press, 2019), cartographic cogitator Mark Monmonier shares hi...
Jack Glazier, "Anthropology and Radical Humanism: Native and African American Narratives and the Myth of Race" (MSU Press, 2020)
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Radin was one of the founding generation of American cultural anthropologists: A student of Franz Boas, and famed ethnographer of the Winneb...
Lenny A. Ureña Valerio, "Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920" (Ohio UP, 2019
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Ohio University...
Lee McIntyre, "The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience" (MIT Press, 2019)
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What can explain the success of science as an endeavor for getting closer to truth? Does science simply represent a successful methodology, or is it s...
John Christopoulos, "Abortion in Early Modern Italy" (Harvard UP, 2021)
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today we have John Christopoulos, Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, to talk about his new book, Abortion in Earl...
Erika Dyck, "Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018)
30 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked with historian Erika Dyck about Aldous Huxley, Humphry Osmond and their correspondence over a ten year period. Psychedelic Prophets: Th...
Douglas Hunter, "Beardmore: The Viking Hoax That Rewrote History" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018)
30 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1936, long before the discovery of the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, the Royal Ontario Museum made a sensational acquisition: the conten...
Anne E. Linton, "Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws of Nineteenth-Century France" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A compelling study of medical and literary imaginations, Anne Linton's Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws of Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge Uni...
Wayne Soon, "Global Medicine in China: A Diasporic History" (Stanford UP, 2020)
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Wayne Soon about his book Global Medicine in China: A Diasporic History (Stanford UP, 2020). In 1938, one year into the Second Si...
Katherine D. Von Schaik, "How to Be Healthy: An Ancient Guide to Wellness" (Galen) (Princeton UP, 2024)
17 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The second-century Greek physician Galen—the most famous doctor in antiquity after Hippocrates—is a central figure in Western medicine. A talented...
Emma K. Sutton, "William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emma K. Sutton's William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician (U Chicago Press, 2023) is the first book to map William James's preoccupat...
Peter Bellerby, "The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Bellerby is the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, the world's only truly bespoke makers of globes. His team of skilled craftspeople make ex...
Ran Zwigenberg, "Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ran Zwigenberg’s Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (U Chicago Press, 2023) explores early ...
David K. Zimmerman, "Ensnared Between Hitler and Stalin: Refugee Scientists in the USSR" (U Toronto Press, 2023)
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1930s, hundreds of scientists and scholars fled Hitler’s Germany. Many found safety, but some made the disastrous decision to seek refuge in ...
Maura C. Flannery, "In the Herbarium: The Hidden World of Collecting and Preserving Plants" (Yale UP, 2023)
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In In the Herbarium: The Hidden World of Collecting and Preserving Plants (Yale University Press, 2023), Maura C. Flannery elucidates how herbaria ...
Woodrow Wilson: Patrick Weil’s "The Madman in the White House"
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Patrick Weil, author of The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, ...
Leonie Hannan, "A Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth-Century Home" (Manchester UP, 2023)
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Leonie Hannan's book Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth Century Home (Manchester University Press, 2023) explores the practice of scie...
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (Vintage, 2006)
21 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s major motion picture, Oppenheimer, this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography explores the life and times of J. ...
Elena Serrano, "Ladies of Honor and Merit. Gender, Useful Knowledge, and Politics in Enlightened Spain" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022)
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode I interview Elena Serrano, a research member of the Project Cirgen at the Universitat de València and Ramón y Cajal researcher at th...
Branko Milanovic, "Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War" (Harvard UP, 2023)
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"How do you see income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to change?" That is the question Branko Milanovic imagines posing t...
Jonathan Downs, "Discovery at Rosetta: Revealing Ancient Egypt" (American University in Cairo Press, 2020)
15 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1798, young French general Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt with a veteran army and a specialist group of savants—scientists, engineers, and arti...
E. Summerson Carr, "Working the Difference: Science, Spirit, and the Spread of Motivational Interviewing" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a professional practice, a behavioral therapy, and a self-professed conversation style that encourages clients to ta...
Stephen Bales, "Serapis: The Sacred Library and Its Declericalization" (Library Juice Press, 2021)
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Greco-Egyptian syncretistic god Serapis was used by the 3rd century BCE Ptolemaic pharaohs to impose Greek cultural hegemony and consolidate polit...
Joshua May, "Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)
07 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is free will an illusion? Is addiction a brain disease? Should we enhance our brains beyond normal? Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science ...
Claudine Chavannes-Mazel and Linda Ijpelaar, "The Green Middle Ages: The Depiction and Use of Plants in the Western World 600-1600" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How 'green' were people in late antiquity and the Middle Ages? Unlike today, the nature around them was approached with faith, trust and care. The pop...
Debapriya Sarkar, "Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Debapriya Sarkar’s new book, titled Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is a study of ho...
Michael D. Gordin, "Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2023)
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone has heard of the term "pseudoscience," typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unp...
Joshua Ehrlich, "The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
16 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The East India Company is remembered as the world's most powerful, not to say notorious, corporation. But for many of its advocates from the 1770s to ...
Christopher T. Fleming et al., "Science and Society in the Sanskrit World" (Brill, 2023)
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Science and Society in the Sanskrit World (Brill, 2023) lauds the remarkable career of Christopher Z. Minkowski, the erstwhile Boden Professor of San...
Neil Tarrant, "Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and ...
A Better Way to Buy Books
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has alre...
Situating Religion and Medicine (with Michael Stanley-Baker)
08 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I sit down for an in-depth conversation with my good friend, Michael Stanley-Baker, a scholar of Chinese religion and medicine. We talk about Mi...
Herlinde Koelbl, "Fascination of Science: 60 Encounters with Pioneering Researchers of Our Time" (MIT Press, 2023)
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An intimate collection of portraits of internationally renowned scientists and Nobel Prize winners, paired with interviews and personal stories. What ...
Gerald O'Brien, "Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective: Implications for the Social Work Profession" (Oxford UP, 2023)
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gerald O'Brien's book Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective: Implications for the Social Work Profession (Ox...
Nancy L. Segal, "The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive" (Academic Studies Press, 2023)
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive (Academic Studies Press, 2023) is an annotated collection of original, i...
Alexandra Roginski, "Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World: Popular Phrenology in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
04 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The contentious science of phrenology once promised insight into character and intellect through external ‘reading’ of the head. In the transformi...
Jonathan Ablard, "Madness in Buenos Aires: Patients, Psychiatrists, and the Argentine State, 1880-1983" (Ohio UP, 2008)
01 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Madness in Buenos Aires: Patients, Psychiatrists, and the Argentine State, 1880-1983 (Ohio UP, 2008) examines the interactions between psychiatrists,...
Donna J. Drucker, "Fertility Technology" (MIT Press, 2023)
29 Aug 2023
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...
Barbara Sattler, "The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Barbara M. Sattler's book The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics (Cambridge UP, 2020) examin...
Lawrence Goldman, "Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2022)
25 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A defining feature of nineteenth-century Britain was its fascination with statistics. The processes that made Victorian society, including the growth ...
Travis Holloway, "How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene" (Stanford UP, 2022)
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
the near universal disappearance of shared social enterprise: the ruling class builds walls and lunar shuttles, while the rest of us contend with the ...
Thomas Simpson, "The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2021), Thomas Simpson provides an innovative a...
Laura R. Kremmel, "Romantic Medicine and the Gothic Imagination: Morbid Anatomies" (U Wales Press, 2022)
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Romantic Medicine and the Gothic Imagination: Morbid Anatomies (U Wales Press, 2022) demonstrates a little-studied crossover between the Gothic imagi...
Al Coppola, "The Theater of Experiment: Staging Natural Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2016)
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first book-length study of the relationship between science and theater during the long eighteenth century in Britain, The Theater of Experiment:...
Michael Ruse, "Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us about Evolution" (Oxford UP, 2017)
11 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including human...
Chris Wiggins and Matthew L Jones, "How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms" (Norton, 2023)
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From facial recognition―capable of checking people into flights or identifying undocumented residents―to automated decision systems that inform wh...
Andreas Killen, "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War" (Harper, 2023)
06 Aug 2023
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...
Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Computer graphics (or CG) has changed the way we experience the art of moving images. Computer graphics is the difference between Steamboat Willie and...
Ruth Yun-Ju Chen, "Good Formulas: Empirical Evidence in Mid-Imperial Chinese Medical Texts" (U Washington Press, 2023)
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ruth Yun-Ju Chen is a historian of mid-imperial China (600–1400). Her research interests lie in the histories of medicine, publishing, and material ...
Taylor McCall, "The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
01 Aug 2023
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...
Jonathan R. Topham, "Reading the Book of Nature: How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
29 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Charles Darwin returned to Britain from the Beagle voyage in 1836, the most talked-about scientific books of the day were the Bridgewater Treatis...
Archaeology and Nomadism in the Russian Empire: An interview with Ismael Biyashev
29 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the second half of the 19th century, both professional and amateur archaeologists, surveyors, and explorers of the “periphery” of the Russian ...
Yi-Tang Lin, "Statistics and the Language of Global Health: Institutions and Experts in China, Taiwan, and the World, 1917-1960" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yi-Tang Lin received her BA in sociology at National Taiwan University and MA in MA Interdisciplinary Practices of Humanities and Social Sciences, Éc...
Heidi Hausse, "The Malleable Body: Surgeons, Artisans, and Amputees in Early Modern Germany" (Manchester UP, 2023)
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Heide Hausse's book The Malleable Body: Surgeons, Artisans, and Amputees in Early Modern Germany (Manchester University Press, 2023) uses amputatio...
Victoria Lee, "The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
16 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Victoria Lee’s The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan (U Chicago Press, 2021) is an in-depth exploration...
Liana Saif et al., "Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice" (Brill, 2020)
10 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice (Brill, 2020) brings together the latest research on Islamic occult sciences from a variety of disc...
Kevin Killeen, "The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought: Natural Philosophy and the Poetics of the Ineffable" (Stanford UP, 2023)
09 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s guest is Kevin Killeen whose new monograph, The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought: Natural Philosophy and the Poetics of the Ineffable, ha...
Marco Caboara, "Regnum Chinae: The Printed Western Maps of China to 1735" (Brill, 2022)
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Regnum Chinae: The Printed Western Maps of China to 1735 (Brill, 2022) does something that no one has ever done before: collect just about every West...
Rose Marie San Juan, "Violence and the Genesis of the Anatomical Image" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023)
03 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nothing excited early modern anatomists more than touching a beating heart. In his 1543 treatise, Andreas Vesalius boasts that he was able to feel lif...
Eileen V. Wallis, "California and the Politics of Disability, 1850–1970" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Eileen V. Wallis' book California and the Politics of Disability, 1850–1970 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) explores the political, legal, medical, and...
Rebecca Whiteley, "Birth Figures: Early Modern Prints and the Pregnant Body" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
26 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca Whiteley's book Birth Figures: Early Modern Prints and the Pregnant Body (University of Chicago Press, 2023) is first full study of “bir...
Tom Higham, "The World Before Us: The New Science Behind Our Human Origins" (Yale UP, 2021)
24 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fifty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was not the only species of humans in the world. There were also Neanderthals in what is now Europe, the Near...
Andrew Jones, "How Kant Matters for Biology: A Philosophical History" (U Wales Press, 2023)
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kant denied biology the status of a proper science, yet his account of the organism profoundly influenced a range of intellectual disciplines. Andre...
James Hannam, "The Globe: How the Earth Became Round" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Globe: How the Earth Became Round (Reaktion, 2023), Dr. James Hannam presents a history of how we came to know that the earth is round, rathe...
John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)
20 Jun 2023
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 ...
Rachel E. Walker, "Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Between the 1770s and 1860s, people across the globe relied on physiognomy and phrenology to evaluate human worth. Physiognomy refers to using facial ...
Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, "The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life" (U California Press, 2023)
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life (U of California Press, 2023), Benjamín Schultz‑Figueroa examines rarely seen b...
Keith Tribe, "Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950" (Oxford UP, 2022)
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the late nineteenth century concerns about international commercial rivalry were often expressed in terms of national provision for training an...
Chris Manias, "The Age of Mammals: Nature, Development, and Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)
17 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When people today hear "paleontology," they immediately think of dinosaurs. But for much of the history of the discipline, dramatic demonstrations of ...
Vera Keller, "The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
17 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many accounts of the scientific revolution portray it as a time when scientists disciplined knowledge by first disciplining their own behavior. Accord...
Grace Elisabeth Lavery, "Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques" (Princeton UP, 2023)
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques (Princeton UP, 2023), Grace Lavery investigates gender transition...
Simon Paul Cox, "The Subtle Body: A Genealogy" (Oxford UP, 2021)
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How does the soul relate to the body? Through the ages, innumerable religious and intellectual movements have proposed answers to this question. Many ...
Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind, "Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis" (Harvard UP, 2023)
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis (Harvard UP, 2023) is a sweeping intellectual history of the concept of econ...
Athene Donald, "Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why are girls discouraged from doing science? Why do so many promising women leave science in early and mid-career? Why do women not prosper in the sc...
The History of 19th-Century Quarantine Politics: A Conversation with David S. Barnes
05 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David S. Barnes, Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about his book, Lazaretto: How Phil...
Philip Kirby and Margaret J. Snowling, "Dyslexia: A History" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
03 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1896 the British physician William Pringle Morgan published an account of “Percy,” a “bright and intelligent boy, quick at games, and in no w...
Anne Gerritsen and Burton Cleetus, "Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
29 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000 (Bloomsbury, 2023): Introducing mater...
James Poskett, "Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science" (Mariner Books, 2022)
21 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Horizons: A Global History of Science (Mariner Books, 2022), James Poskett, Associate Professor in the History of Science and Technology at the U...
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, "Split and Splice: A Phenomenology of Experimentation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
20 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Split & Splice: A Phenomenology of Experimentation (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, director emeritus at the Max Plan...
The Future of the Human Heart: A Discussion with Vincent M. Figueredo
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Long considered the most important of all organs, the human heart has fascinated artists and scientists alike. Listen to cardiologist Vincent Figuered...
Kate Clancy, "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation" (Princeton UP, 2023)
15 May 2023
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...
Hasok Chang, "Realism for Realistic People: A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science (Cambridge UP, 2022)
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For a certain kind of standard realist, science aims at getting the absolute truth about the universe. For Hasok Chang, this view is unrealistic becau...
Michael Brown, "Emotions and Surgery in Britain, 1793-1912" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this innovative analytical account of the place of emotion and embodiment in nineteenth-century British surgery, Michael Brown examines the changin...
Britta K. Ager, "The Scent of Ancient Magic" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Magic was a fundamental part of the Greco-Roman world. Curses, erotic spells, healing charms, divination, and other supernatural methods of trying to ...
Pharmacological Histories Ep. 1: Nancy D. Campbell on Naloxone
08 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on interviews with approximately sixty advocates, drug users, former users, friends, families, witnesses, clinicians, and scientists; Nancy D....
Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Break On Through, Lucas Richert explores Anti-psychiatry, psychedelics, and radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of men...