Bücher der Reihe Science in History

An innovative exploration of China's modern transformation through the history of homicide investigation and forensic science in Republican Beijing. Daniel Asen examines the process through which imperial China's tradition of forensic science came to serve the needs of a changing state and society under dramatically new circumstances.

In this first systematic exploration of the intriguing connections between Victorian physical sciences and what we now call the paranormal, Richard Noakes challenges our view of the history of physics, and deepens our understandings of the relationships between science and the occult, and science and religion.

In this fresh take on astronomy's role in modern Islamic practice, science and technology are linked with the cultural, material, and political transformations of Ottoman Egypt in the nineteenth century.

J. D. Bernal's monumental work, Science in History, was the first full attempt to analyse the reciprocal relations of science and society throughout history, from the perfection of the flint hand-axe to the hydrogen bomb. In this remarkable study he illustrates the impetus given to (and the limitations placed upon) discovery and invention by pastoral, agricultural, feudal, capitalist, and socialist systems, and conversely the ways in which science has altered economic, social, and political beliefs and practices. In this first volume Bernal discusses the nature and method of science before describing its emergence in the Stone Age, its full formation by the Greeks and its continuing growth (probably influenced from China) under Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages. Andrew Brown, Bernal's biographer, with a nice sense of paradox, has said of him, he 'was steeped in history, in part because he was always thinking about the future.' He goes on to say, 'Science in History is an encyclopaedic, yet individual and colourful account of the emergence of science from pre-historic times. There is detailed coverage of the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Age and the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. . . The writing flows and is devoid of the tortured idioms that mar so many academic histories of science. After reading it, it is easy to agree with C. P. Snow's orotund observation that Bernal was the last man to know science.Faber Finds are reissuing the illustrated four volume edition first published by Penguin in 1969. The four volumes are: Volume 1: The Emergence of Science, Volume 2: The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, Volume 3: The Natural Sciences in Our Time, Volume 4: The Social Sciences: Conclusion.'This stupendous work . . . is a magnificent synoptic view of the rise of science and its impact on society which leaves the reader awe-struck by Professor Bernal's encyclopaedic knowledge and historical sweep.' Times Literary Supplement

Bernal's monumental work, Science in History, was the first full attempt to analyse the reciprocal relations of science and society throughout history, from the perfection of the flint hand-axe to the hydrogen bomb.

The third volume of Science in History covers the twentieth century, with chapters on the physical sciences and the biological sciences, with their impact on agriculture and medicine.

This fourth and final volume discusses the social sciences, from early rituals and myths, through ancient and medieval conceptualisation of society, and finally on to Marxism, economics, anthropology, and these sciences' impact on twentieth-century perspectives.'This stupendous work .

Cultivating Commerce is an accessibly written and beautifully illustrated new social history of botany in Britain and France. It will appeal to all students and scholars working on British and French culture, the history of science and social and gender history in the late eighteenth century.

In this engaging exploration of the trials and tribulations of the first mail steamships, Crosbie Smith reveals the uncertainties of Victorian life on the seas. This innovative history shows, in rich detail, how enterprises engineered their ships, constructed empire-wide systems of navigation and won or lost public confidence in the process.

A study of German scientists who travelled to other nations' empires to observe, record, and collect rich materials that shaped European views of the East. This lavishly illustrated book provides a gripping account of trans-cultural overseas exploration, colonial science, and Anglo-German cooperation and conflicts in the nineteenth century.

When and how did the Himalaya become the highest mountains in the world? Lachlan Fleetwood tells the story of the scientific, political and imaginative remaking needed to fit the Himalaya into a new global scientific and imperial order in the nineteenth century.

Between 1920 and 1950, British and US internationalists called for aviation and atomic energy to be taken out of the hands of nation-states, and instead used by international organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. An international air force was to enforce collective security and internationalized civil aviation was to bind the world together through trade and communication. The bomber and the atomic bomb, now associated with death and devastation, were to be instruments of world peace. Drawing on rich archival research and focusing on public and private discourse relating to the control of aviation and atomic energy, Waqar H. Zaidi highlights neglected technological and militaristic strands in twentieth-century liberal internationalism, and transforms our understanding of the place of science and technology in twentieth-century international relations.

Twenty-first-century Japan is known for the world's most aged population. Faced with this challenge, Japan has been a pioneer in using science to find ways of managing a declining birth rate. Science for Governing Japan's Population considers the question of why these population phenomena have been seen as problematic. What roles have population experts played in turning this demographic trend into a government concern? Aya Homei examines the medico-scientific fields around the notion of population that developed in Japan from the 1860s to the 1960s, analyzing the role of the population experts in the government's effort to manage its population. She argues that the formation of population sciences in modern Japan had a symbiotic relationship with the development of the neologism, 'population' (jinko), and with the transformation of Japan into a modern sovereign power. Through this history, Homei unpacks assumptions about links between population, sovereignty, and science. This title is also available as Open Access.