Industrialization created cities of Dickensian squalor that were crowded, smoky, dirty, and disease-ridden. By the beginning of the 20th century, urban visionaries were looking for ways to improve both living and working conditions in industrial cities. In Invented Edens, Robert Kargon and Arthur Molella trace the arc of one form of urban design, which they […]

The 18th century has long been considered critical for the development of modern chemistry, yet many features of the period remain largely unknown or unexplored. This volume details new approaches and topics to build a more complex view of chemical work during the period. Themes include late-phase alchemy, professionalization, chemical education, and the links and […]

Winner of the 2005 Pfizer Prize from the History of Science Society. What actually took place in the private laboratory of a mid-seventeenth century alchemist? How did he direct his quest after the secrets of Nature? What instruments and theoretical principles did he employ? Using, as their guide, the previously misunderstood interactions between Robert Boyle, […]

In the 1890s, several initiatives in American botany converged. The creation of new institutions, such as the New York Botanical Garden, coincided with radical reforms in taxonomic practice and the emergence of an experimental program of research on evolutionary problems. Sharon Kingsland explores how these changes gave impetus to the new field of ecology that […]

Focusing on MIT and Stanford, Leslie offers a critical look at American science in the making. He reveals a regrettable series of misplaced priorities and missed opportunities that have characterized the recent history of science and technology in this country.

The first history of population ecology traces two generations of science and scientists from the opening of the twentieth century through 1970. Kingsland chronicles the careers of key figures and the field’s theoretical, empirical, and institutional development, with special attention to tensions between the descriptive studies of field biologists and later mathematical models. This second […]