20th Science Research Articles

Creating common ground: A lesson from the past

Orthodox business ethics, conventional management theory, and a great deal of higher education embody the overriding emphasis accorded to “analysis” by yesteryear's science. An alternative strategy, exemplified by the war stories told by a Confederate Genral, is more consistent with late 20th century science in general and soft systems methodology in particular. The characteristic way of management that we have taught... is to take a complex system, divide it into parts, and then try to manage each part as well as possible. And if that's done, the system as a whole will behave well, and that's absolutely false because it's possible to improve the performance of each part taken separately and destroy the system at the same time. Russell Ackoff

The Music of the Spheres: Music, Science, and the Natural Order of the Universe

From the 5th century BC, when Pythagoras first composed his laws of Western music and science, until the flowering of Romanticism over 2000 years later, scientists and philosophers perceived the cosmos musically, as an ordered mechanism whose smooth operation created a celestial harmony - the music of the spheres. The separation of science and music began with the scientific revolution during the Renaissance, and reached a peak with Romanticism, which celebrated what was human, individual and local. 20th-century science and music, argues Jamie James in this book, have rejected the Romantic ideal and placed the ultimate focus outside the reach of human reason once again. The book provides a survey of the history of science and music, a reassessment of Romanticism and the modernist reaction to it, and a radical intellectual journey.

The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology by Lily E. Kay

TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Book Reviews 883 embedded in both federal science policy and legal interpretation as a crucial incentive to innovation. SheilaJasanoff’s study of risk assessment at the Environmental Protection Agency—what she too efifacingly calls “a modest exemplar of the way to study ‘science after ’40’ ”—demon­ strates how much political scientists can teach us about interpreting the regulatory structure so central in the postwar state. As those of us working in the field know all too well, the documentary sources for the history of recent science present some unique chal­ lenges. Beyond the more or less straightforward problems of classified and proprietary material, electronic technologies that do not leave paper trails, and the massive quantities of material, there are more subtle issues about how our sources may be shaping our histories. In a thoughtful analysis of the cold fusion episode, Bruce Lewenstein shows how media coverage “framed” its meaning for the public and the scientific community alike, in ways that future historians will have to consider. Joan Wamow-Blewett surveys the efforts to preserve the record of recent science and technology and provides an invaluable guide to disciplinary history centers, archival projects, and publications. As might be expected, corporations and government agencies are saving the records and funding the research. Reading through the list with Lewenstein’s critique in mind raises some troubling questions about the sources of our sources and how they may be framing the meaning of recent science in ways we have not even really begun to consider. Stuart W. Leslie Dr. Leslie teaches the history ofscience and technology atJohns Hopkins University and recendy published The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford. The Molecular Vision ofLife: Caltech, the RockefellerFoundation, and the Rise of the New Biology. By Lily E. Kay. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. x+304; illustrations, notes, index. $49.95. It can reasonably be claimed that molecular biology is one of the defining sciences of the late 20th century. Not only is it an intellectual enterprise with remarkable scholarly fruits, it is also widely seen to underpin biotechnology in a manner that seemingly exemplifies the relationships between science and high technology. The early histories such as the 1966 Festschrift for Max Delbruck, Phage and the Origins of MolecularBiology, portrayed a straightforward historical progression seen through the lens of one key school. As professional historians took over, however, developments seemed to become more complex. Even the phrase “molecular biology” proved to have been problematic: its most significant early use in the 1930s was by Warren Weaver, not an intellectual giant but an officer of the Rockefeller Foundation. His work has attracted studies of the foundation’s proactive strategies, which have 884 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE proved to be among the liveliest and most dynamic aspects of the history of science as a whole. Major contributors have included Pnina Abir-Am and Robert Kohler in their studies focused on molecular biology and the Rockefeller, respectively. In a series of papers and in his recent book Partners in Science, Kohler showed the complex factors underlying the motivations of foundation officers such as Warren Weaver and their clients, including such luminaries as Linus Pauling. From the work of Abir-Am, we are now aware that there were many institutional traditions underpinning modern molecular biology. Cambridge, England, is one site that is attracting much attention; Paris’s Pasteur Institute, home of Jacob and Monod, was also crucial. Many other key developments, whether associated with Morgan, Beadle, or Delbruck, took place at Caltech, whose own history has in its turn been recounted by Judith Goodstein. Now Lily Kay has brought together much of the existing work to give us a coherent account ofthe evolution ofmolecular biology in Pasadena. Although this work would not have been lessened by a greater acknowledgment of the contribution ofothers, it does go beyond existing literature in the strength of its claims about the way in which goals of social control in the vision of key players—as patrons in the Pasadena area, sponsors at the Rockefeller, and researchers at the university— underpinned the endeavor of molecular biology. In the era of the seamless web, complex...

LINUS PAULING DIES AT 93 Giant among chemists, activist for peace

Linus C. Pauling, one of the towering figures in 20th century science and a tireless activist for world peace, died Aug. 19 of cancer at his ranch in Northern California. He was 93. Many consider P...

Selected Heralds of 20th Century Science A Sequel

Even though they heralded profound changes in 20th century daily life and/or led to greater understanding of the physical world, many of the first published reports of this century's landmark discoveries and inventions are little known and valued. In order to promote recognition of their historic importance, 34 scientific advances and citations to their initial published reports are herewith presented. These are additions to 39 advances/citations of an earlier paper. The arrangement is chronological from 1900 to 1987.

Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot, and the Invention of Photography.

The boundaries of fiction - John Herschel, Henry Talbot and 19th-century science the beauty of the first idea - a selective pre-history of photography the dawn of photography - Herschel and Talbot in the Spring of 1839 storm clouds and rainbows - Summer 1839-Summer 1840 photography becomes an art.

Freud's Dream: A Complete Interdisciplinary Science of Mind

By examining the rise and fall of psychoanalysis, Dream provides an extended case study of the appeal and potential dangers of the interdisciplinary approach to theory construction now guiding cognitive science as well as a novel interpretation of Freud's own programme. Kitcher argues that Freud's grand scheme for psychoanalysis was nothing less than a blueprint for a complete interdisciplinary science of mind, that many of its strengths and weaknesses derived from that fact, and that Freud's errors are instructive for current work in cognitive science. In particular, Kitcher maintains that Freud's metapsychology was not a dispensible theoretical superstructure but a set of directives for constructing a science of mind that would be firmly grounded in then current results in neurophysiology, evolutionary biology, psychology, psychiatry and the social sciences. The collapse of psychoanalysis, Kitcher asserts, was due in large measure to fundamental changes in the sciences out of which Freud constructed his theories and his refusal to recognize the degree to which he had made psychoanalysis dependent on the results and assumptions of 19th-century science.

The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences ed. by Adele E. Clarke, Joan H. Fujimura

964 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences. Edited by Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xi4- 365; notes, bibliography, index. $35.00. This book is about scientific practice. As its editors say, it is about the nitty-gritty of scientific work—instruments, materials, methods, and the craft aspect of 20th-century life sciences. The point of departure is that scientific work is constrained or enabled by the accessibility, cost, and pacing associated with specific tools for scientificjobs and by the funding and work arrangements involved in their use. Thus the book focuses on how tools shape and are shaped by research interests, how these interrelations are “situated,” and how they change over time. It examines processes of coconstruction of tools, jobs, and “rightness”; the construction of doable problems; crafting, tinkering, and contingent arrangements; stabilization, continuity, and collective action in life science research. The ten studies—all superbly documented (although their organiza­ tion and clarity ofarguments are uneven)—are grouped in three thematic categories, reflecting the interaction of tools, jobs, and rightness. Within the first category, three essays examine different aspects of “Co-constructing Tools, Jobs, and Rightness.” J. Griesemer’s thoughtful article, “The Role of Instruments in the Generative Analysis of Science,” compares the study of speciation at an ecology/evolutionary biology laboratory with that at a zoological museum, showing how the laboratory system and the museum both became entrenched through quite differ­ ent modeling systems. K. Jordan and M. Lynch’s study, “The Sociology of a Genetic Engineering Technique: Ritual and Rationality in the Performance of the ‘Plasmid Prep,’ ” takes us into a laboratory to observe both the fixed and contingent aspects of this standard technique. The authors are fascinated by the rational, irrational, and ritualistic elements of laboratory practice. In a different vein, P. Taylor’s important essay, “Re/constructing Socioecologies: System Dynamics, Modeling of No­ madic Pastoralists in Sub-Saharan Africa,” links Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s systems analysts, African pastoralists, and government agencies in an examination of modeling human ecology, underscoring the intersections of technical, social, and economic contingencies, and their international political embedment. The essays in the second organizing theme explore how disciplines shape tools and tools shape disciplines. F. Holmes’s study, “Manom­ eters, Tissue Slices, and Intermediary Metabolism,” skillfully traces the production and modification of the manometer through the craft practices of biochemistry, demonstrating the movement of techniques across “problem contexts” and scientific generations. In their wellcrafted study, “Whatever Happened to Planaria? C. M. Child and the Physiology of Inheritance,” G. Mitman and A. Fausto-Sterling show how Child advanced his theory/method package in developmental TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 965 genetics in direct opposition to T. H. Morgan’s powerful reductive genetics and how the once-thriving planaria research was eclipsed by the drosophila-based paradigm. Similarly, the excellent essay by B. Kimmelman , “Organisms and Interests in Scientific Research: R. A. Emer­ son’s Claims for the Unique Contributions of Agricultural Genetics,” highlights the relationship between choice ofresearch organisms and the institutional and social settings of scientific choices. It demonstrates the contextual legitimacy of corn genetics and its eventual marginalization by the Morganian hegemony. Yrjo Haila’s nuanced analysis, “Measuring Nature: Quantitative Data in Field Biology,” focuses on the multiplicity of problematic connections between theoretical and empirical paths in field research, arguing that, as the discipline of field biology historically moved from an antitheoretical to a more theoretical approach, the politics of theory itself became increasingly visible. The final three studies are set within the organizing theme, “Changing Construction ofTools,Jobs, and Rightness.” In an intriguing essay, “Craft vs. Commodity, Mess vs. Transcendence: How the Right Tool Became the Wrong One in the Case of Taxidermy and Natural History” S. Star retraces the taxidermists’ path toward professionalization that eventually came to a dead end with the rise ofexperimental research and the eclipse of “realism” in biology. P. Gossel’s vivid examination of “A Need for Standard Methods: The Case of American Bacteriology,” shows how the technical crisis in the 1890s over the identification of organisms in water supplies led to a...

Selected Heralds of 20th Century Science

A neglected area of science bibliography is identification of the first published reports of landmark discoveries and inventions of the 20th century. Most such reports take the from of periodical articles. Even though they heralded profound changes in daily life and/or led to greater understanding of the physical world, many of the reports are little known and valued. In order to promote recognition of their historic importance, citations are presented to the initial publications concerning selected discoveries and inventions, arranged chronologically and ranging from the quantum theory to genetic engineering.

We Will Rise in Our Might: Workingwomen’s Voices from Nineteenth-Century New England by Mary H. Blewett

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 427 chronology of the scientific study and use of the daguerreotype. This material is an important addition to the held of photohistory, for it is a topic that has largely been ignored, even in such classics as Beaumont Newhall’s The Daguerreotype in America. Barger and White discuss the work of the expected—Draper, Fizeau, and Becquerel—but also in­ clude the work ofthose rarely noted—Donne, Moser, Bunsen, Zenken, and others. They convince us that the daguerreotype played an im­ portant role in mid-19th-century science experimentation. Although the authors do an admirablejob of documenting science, they fall short of putting it into perspective. They fail to talk about science infrastructure and why scientists in the 19th century were interested in this field. Observations such as “the study of light phe­ nomena and optics was an active field of research throughout the 19th century” (p. 99) are not followed up. Greater insight into 19th-century science motivation and the shaping ofcultural concerns is needed here. The Daguerreotype is strong in its detailed exploration of daguerre­ otype image formation and structure (e.g., showing that mercury is mostly gone from a daguerreotype after a few years). Unfortunately, Barger and White get bogged down in an attempt to teach light theory and real science. It is safe to say that few nonscientists will understand statements like “these monomers migrate to form embry­ onic precursors that, after sufficient growth, become stable nuclei” (p. 152) or even the references to elements such as silver, mercury, and bromine by their periodic symbols. One of the problems in writing about science is keeping the subject simple enough that nonscientists can still read and understand the material. The narrow focus of these works confirms that most photohistori­ ans have yet to break from their historiographical niches. With few exceptions—David Nye’s Image Worlds is one—most photography books appeal narrowly to art historians, photography buffs, or photohistorians. Perhaps in the future research will be couched in a broader perspective and directed to a larger community of scholars. Peter Liebhold Mr. Liebhold is a museum specialist in the Division of Engineering and Industry at the National Museum of American History. His current research examines the culture of work and its relation to technological change. We Will Rise in Our Might: Workingwomen’s Voicesfrom Nineteenth-Century New England. By Mary H. Blewett. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 221; illustrations, bibliography, index. $32.50 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). Popular images of technology as an inhuman and autonomous force are reinforced by historical surveys that paint technological change on a canvas so broad as to reduce humans to small blots of 428 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE information, one individual indistinguishable from the next. Work­ ers, machinists, operatives, mill owners, managers, consumers, and the various other groups who experienced industrialization firsthand rarely are called by name. Mary Blewett has been studying the people of the Industrial Revolution who lived and worked in the mills and factories of Massachusetts. Her work fights the anonymity of the workers by putting into print their words, work, and lives. The Last Generation (University of Massachusetts Press, 1990) was a set of oral histories of textile workers in Lowell. This latest volume removes the historical gags from the mouths of the female workers in the shoe industry in Lynn, whose larger history Blewett investigated in Men, Women, and Work (University of Illinois Press, 1988). We Will Rise in Our Might reprints the private writings, public documents, and published memoirs—essentially the primary resources—that the author used in the 1988 history. In this book we hear the complaints and pleasures of the women who spent their days stitching together shoes. We hear their ruminations about the proper role of women in society, and the rights of women as workers. We hear their dreams about building a future for themselves and their families, as well as their daydreams about family, friends, and lovers left behind when they traveled to Lynn to find work in the shoe factories. And we hear their angry cries for reform in the industry and demands for fairer pay. Thebookis organized...

A systems/perennial approach to the evolution of psyche

Abstract The advent of the mechanistic paradigm in 17th century science constituted the death of nature. In an attempt to remain consistent with trends in the natural sciences, psychologists adopted mechanistic metaphors in their theories of the human being. The result was the biological reductionism and determinism of classical psychoanalysis and the robot conception of human potential implied in behaviorism. Humanistic psychology arose as a movement to counteract mechanistic theories and their various dehumanizing implications. In so doing, humanistic psychology cut itself off from its roots in the hard sciences of biology and physics. New models in General Systems Theory (GST), however, promise to reconnect post‐modern psychology with its severed roots in the natural sciences. Self‐actualization dynamics, which constitutes the core of the humanistic perspective, are also evident in the self‐organizing and self‐transcending processes of open systems throughout the hierarchies of existence. The core idea...

James Chadwick and the atomic bomb

One of the pleasures of the centenary in 1991 of James Chadwick’s birth was the growing interest in him, not only among the people who knew him but also among younger scientists and scholars in the history of 20th-century science; several are planning books and articles. This shows good discrimination within the history of science profession. Of course Chadwick’s name is known to the world of science as that of a marvellous physicist, in particular as the discoverer of the neutron; but in the past it never became asgenerallyfamiliar nor as publicly honoured as, say, Cockcroft’s. The planning by the Cavendish Laboratory and Caius College of the celebration at Cambridge of his centenary was evidence that his true status in all its dimensions is increasingly appreciated.

Ecology and utility: the philosophical dilemmas of planetary management

Ecology and Utility examines environmentalist or traditions of thought. Although the names may be relatively new, the ideas are old, with connections to ancient philosophies and religions and a lineage which runs through romantic art and 19th century science. The examination is conducted from a broad and sceptical utilitarian point of view. That is, the author looks at green ideas from a philosophical position committed to the maximization of human well-being in the aggregate. Much environmentalist thought is overtly opposed to utilitarianism, but this account finds that some important parts of the green critique of contemporary western society could and should be incorporated into utilitarian calculations, including many arguments about the disadvantage of large-scale markets and bureaucracies. On the other hand, important elements of environmentalist thinking are both reactionary and radical in ways that make them repugnant to a utilitarian philosophy.

Partners in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900–1945 by Robert E. Kohler

638 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Partners in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900—1945. By Robert E. Kohler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Pp· xv + 415; ilustrations, tables, notes, index. $34.95. The dustjacket of Robert Kohler’s book, Partners in Science, displays a 1939 photograph of a lean scientist gripping the controls of the robust sixty-inch medical cyclotron at the University of California. A midget by comparison to today’s cyclotrons, this joint creation of scientists and their philanthropic patrons represented the frontier of science in the 1930s. This vanguard also included smaller but no less impressive technologies: ultracentrifuges, electrophoresis, electron microscopy, spectroscopy, X-ray and electron diffraction—machines that penetrated and transformed the inner sanctum of science, the laboratory. The image on the cover conveys the principal message of this valuable book. Judiciously tempered, the argument is that during the interwar era the natural sciences in America underwent major technological and organization transformations, patterns that formed a bridge between the small-scale personalized style of 19th-century science and the megascale team projects that came to characterize “big science” after World War II. These transformations, the book argues, were shaped by the partnership of scientists and the large philanthropic founda­ tions, notably the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Founda­ tion. The author’s point of departure is that the production of scientific knowledge is a complex social process reaching beyond the laboratory. Science is done not only by scientists: “Foundation managers were doing science no less than the scientists whose work they helped make possible” (p. 2). He thus focuses on how these systems of patronage worked, how these networks were constructed, and how they shaped and were shaped by the institutional structures they supported. In fact, Partners in Science is not about intellectual pursuits and cognitive products; it offers important insights into the social process that empowered them. The material is organized mainly chronologically. The first part, 1900—20, traces the creation of the patronage systems of the Carnegie and Rockefeller philanthropies and the evolution of a limited part­ nership between scientists and patrons. After the mobilization of science for World War I, the national value of science rose sharply, making the 1920s a watershed in foundations’ commitment to re­ search and to strengthening elite universities. The second part examines the institutional relations governing the Rockefeller Foun­ dation’s American and European activities in the natural sciences in the 1920s. The third part focuses on the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of molecular biology in the 1930s and in particular on the managerial role of Warren Weaver, the director of the natural science TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 639 division. The last chapter is devoted to the emergence of sophisticated laboratory technologies that altered the organization of knowledge and the social practices of life science. Together these chapters reconstruct the important elements of the system of patronage that propelled the natural sciences closer to the threshold of big science. The book is instructive both because of its scope and limits. With deftness and wit that has characterized his earlier works, Kohler has managed to integrate voluminous findings, dexterously surveying scores of institutions and following the trajectories of hundreds of actors. The densely woven biographical and administrative threads have produced a richly textured pattern of the American patronage of science. But the book seldom steps out of this enchanted institu­ tional realm, and has little critical distance from the actors and events it describes. Primarily on the basis of records of the patrons and their scientific partners, the author tends to tell mostly their stories. His study traces the capillary workings of power without sufficient sensi­ tivity that these were indeed transactions of knowledge and power nested within a broader political and ideological context. As Kohler himself states, the foundations were as natural a devel­ opment in the field of philanthropy as Standard Oil and United States Steel were in the field of manufacturing. He also notes that the foundations made their operations a business. And after all, the foundations did not support all sciences in all places; they promoted select fields in elite institutions. What was the cognitive and cultural significance of this kind of...

Centralizing Navigational Technology in America: The U.S. Navy’s Depot of Charts and Instruments, 1830–1842

Centralizing Navigational Technology in America: The U.S. Navy’s Depot of Charts and Instruments, 1830—1842 STEVEN J. DICK Since the rise of modern nation-states in the Renaissance, the im­ provement of oceanic navigation has been a central concern to those nations plying the high seas. Driven by diverse interests from commerce to defense, navigation was and continues to be a highly visible enterprise in which each nation also has at stake its scientific and technological pride. National observatories from Paris and Greenwich to St. Peters­ burg and Tokyo were founded in large part to improve navigation while hydrographic (and later oceanographic) offices played a more direct role; observational instruments including the sextant, quadrant, and repeating circle were developed and refined in the service of navigation; the cherished ideal of a perfect marine timekeeper found practical fulfillment in the chronometer ofJohn Harrison and his successors; and modern radio and satellite navigational techniques have culminated in positional “fixes” to within a few meters for many purposes. Navigation inspired a large body of astronomical, meteorological, and magnetic observations, learned papers on its theory and practice, and nautical handbooks, almanacs, and periodicals to disseminate the latest informa­ tion to navigators. Worldwide, the scientific and technological effort expended toward the end of safely voyaging the earth’s seas has been impressive and sustained and forms an important chapter in the history of science and technology. One part of the history of navigation that has not received adequate attention is the rise of navigational technology in the United States, Dr. Dick is an astronomer and historian of science at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Plurality ofWorlds (1982) and is currently at work on a history of the Naval Observatory and of the 20th-century extraterrestrial life debate. He wishes to express his appreciation to the many archivists and librarians consulted during this research, including those at the Navy Historical Center in Washington, D.C., the Military Records Branch of the National Archives, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and particularly to Brenda G. Corbin and Gregory Shelton, librarians at the U.S. Naval Observatory.© 1992 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X792/3303-0003$01.00 467 468 StevenJ. Dick both in its merchant marine and in the U.S. Navy. As a step toward filling that gap, this article addresses the first attempt at centralization of navigational technology in the U.S. Navy by the founding of its Depot of Charts and Instruments in 1830. This centralization process is of interest for many reasons. In a global sense, it may be seen as a case study of activities carried out in similar institutions of many maritime nations.1 In the American context, the depot not only reveals the state of navigational technology in the early 19th century, especially the rise of the chronometer; it is also one indication of a rising scientific spirit in America in the years just prior to “the launching of modern American science.”2 In an age characterized in the United States by a lack of coherent government policy in science—the decade prior to the founding of the Naval Observatory, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science—the navy’s Depot of Charts and Instru­ ments demonstrates how the impetus for centralization and quality control of a nascent technology essential to national interests came not from above but from below, from internal navy concerns recognized by officers of relatively low rank. Although the origin of the depot in 1830 was a technology-driven event, its history reveals the important effects of individual initiative, social and political environment, and European models in institutions, instruments, and methods. Born in an era before specialization, the depot was the original ancestor of several much larger enterprises: the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Hydrographic Office, the Naval Oceanographic Office, and the Defense Mapping Agency. It also contained in embryonic form many of the problems that would preoccupy 19th-century science in America. Finally, the activities at the depot are a direct prelude to the well-known work of Matthew Fontaine Maury, often...

Astronomy and geology, terrible muses! Tennyson and 19th-century science

Shortly after Tennyson’s death in 1892, Thomas Huxley wrote to Sir Michael Foster, then Secretary of the Royal Society, asking Was not Tennyson a Fellow of the Royal Society? If so, should not the President and Council take some notice of his death and delegate some one to the funeral to represent them? Very likely you have thought of it already. He was the only modern poet, in fact the only poet since the time of Lucretius, who has taken the trouble to understand the work and tendency of the men of science. The answer to Huxley’s (presumably rhetorical) question was that Tennyson had, indeed, been a Fellow since 1865, with a prominent supporter on the basis of personal knowledge being Huxley himself. According to the election certificate, Tennyson’s qualifications were that he was: ‘Eminent as a Poet and Man of Letters. Attached to Science and anxious to promote its progress’.

Gaston Bachelard, subversive humanist: texts and readings

Bachelard, who died in 1962, left 12 works on the philosophy of science, nine on the poetic imagination, and two on time and consciousness, written in an image-laden style that rejected traditional academic discourse in favour of a subversive, allusive, highly metaphorical way of thinking and writing. Gaston Bachelard, Subversive Humanist offers an introduction to Bachelard's idiosyncratic writings about the relation of science, poetry, and human consciousness. The extracts are framed in succinct critical essays that explicate the development of his ideas and clarify his relation to the contemporary French intellectual more commonly associated with Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The matrix of Bachelard's thought is 20th century-science, the new scientific mind that he dates from 1905, and Einstein's special theory of relativity. Like the discovery of America 500 years before, the discoveries of mathematics and physics today have undermined our familiar epistemologies. Modern science has forced us to revise our conception of the rational subject and of the relation between reason and reality, subject and object. A psychic revolution has accompanied this in reason. If we try to grasp the dialectics of matter and energy in physics, or the dualism of waves and particles, we shall learn to maintain difference and handle complexity; we are shaken out of the reductive, identity-ridden habits of ordinary life and thought.

Preemptive Therapy in Immunocompromised Hosts

TRANSPLANTATION, of both bone marrow and solid organs, must be regarded as one of the great success stories of 20th-century biomedical science. At the same time, it must be recognized that the manipulations required to achieve long-term graft function create a series of biologic and clinical phenomena affecting the recipients that are without precedent in clinical medicine. Paramount among these are the interactions among immunologically active cells capable of responding to and destroying foreign tissue, immunosuppressive therapy aimed at controlling these cells, and certain infectious agents that are modulated by both factors.In patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation, the best . . .

Book Reviews

Embryos, Ethics, and Women's Rights: Exploring the New Reproductive Technologies. Elaine Hoffman Baruch, Amadeo F. D'Adamo Jr., and Joni Seager, editors. Women and Power in the Middle Ages. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, editors. Women and Power in the Middle Ages. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, editors. The Encyclopedia of Monsters. Jeff Rovin. The History of the English Puppet Theatre. Second Edition. George Speaight. Feminist Thought and the Structure of Knowledge. Mary McCanney Gergen, editor. Rape in Marriage, Expanded and Revised Edition with a New Introduction. Diana E. H. Russell. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. Andrew Ross. Pleasure, Profit, Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad, 1700‐1918. J.A. Mangan, editor The Illustrated History of Science Fiction. Dieter Wuckel and Bruce Cassidy. Handbook of Japanese Popular Culture. Richard Gid Powers and Hidetoshi Kato, editors. Understanding Popular Culture. John Fiske. Reader's Guide to 20th Century Science Fiction. Marilyn P. Fletcher. The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia. Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase, editors. Language and Popular Culture in Japan. Brian Moeran. Godwatching: Viewers, Religion and Television. Michael Svennevig, Ian Haldane, Sharon Spiers, and Barrie Gunter, editors. Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post‐Modernism. Jim Collins. Lost Narratives: Popular Fictions, Politics and Recent History. Roger Bromley. Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings. Bartlett Jere Whiting.

Endless crusade: women social scientists and progressive reform

This study examines the careers of the first four American women to be trained as social scientists in the research universities of late 19th-century USA. The efforts of these women to institutionalize their approach to social analysis and investigation resulted in the first graduate school of social work to be affiliated with a major research university - the University of Chicago. The book looks at the impact of late 19th-century social science on reform and finds that the research universities were important intellectual determinants of the welfare state.