Ether Wave Propaganda

One of the recurring features of this blog is an attempt to construct a new history of science canon. Click here to see the post series. The cumulative results will be posted here. This canon is geared toward the generation of historical knowledge rather than historiographical methodology. Stress is given to economy as well as quality, so one object is to keep the list fairly short. Also, while the intention is not to identify a collection of classics of the science studies literature, because methodological sophistication can be historically revealing, most works will tend toward a high level of historiographical quality. Obviously all standard caveats about mutability of canon and incompleteness of the project apply. Further, readers are, of course, encouraged to critique this canon, suggest additions, as well as to build their own.

19th-century Physics

General Introduction: Mary Jo Nye, Before Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics 1800-1940 (1996). Nye’s book does well to stress the links between chemical and physical work in the 19th century. Select chapters are best read before delving into deeper material.

Andrew Warwick, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (2003). This book covers the development of new cultures of mathematical argumentation, which is essential to understanding the conversion of physics into being a mathematically rigorous discipline over the course of the century. Concentrates on Britain.

Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, 2 vols (1986).  A crucial “map” of 19th-century physics in the German-speaking world, and a detailed account of the rise of sophisticated theory in the German university system.

Jed Buchwald, The Rise of the Wave Theory of Light (1989).  An argument concerning what methodologies and what specific problems drove and allowed the wave theory of light.  More useful as a discussion of how changes in physical methodology between 1800 and 1840 mattered than as a tour of early 19th-century optics, but still a good look at the intellectual milieu of the period, especially in France.

Crosbie Smith, The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain (1998). This book chronicles the conversion of studies of heat, electricity, and magnetism into a rigorously defined and formulated field through the strategies of “North British” proponents of the energy concept. Also concentrates on Britain.

19th-century Earth and Life Sciences

James Secord, “Introduction” to Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell, 1997 Penguin edition.  An excellent account of Lyell’s biography, the formation of his ideas, his writing strategies, and the intellectual, methodological, and cultural impact of his touchstone work.

General 19th Century

Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1981).  An essential account of the institutionalization and growth of an important organ of British science, and the formulation of the modern idea of “science” itself.  A work focusing on detailed history, extensive contextualization, and sociological analysis, it is stylistically similar to Smith’s Science of Energy.

18th-century Natural Philosophy

John Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries (1979).  An extensive compilation and essential resource on electrical experimentation and theorization; begins with very useful discussions of “Physical Principles” and “The Physicists” which orient readers within the intellectual milieu.

Early Modern Sciences

Harold J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (2007).  A compendium of the author’s studies of empirical medicine and botany in the Netherlands and the Dutch trade empire between the 1500s and the 1600s; also includes useful discussions of Descartes’ and Boerhaave’s philosophical ideas.  Most useful as a “schematic of practices” rather than an analytical introduction to the milieu.

Peter Dear, Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (1995).  An advanced discussion of epistemological attitudes in the 17th century.

Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985).  Another advanced discussion of epistemological attitudes in the 17th century, focusing on the problems surrounding the establishment of experimental knowledge.