Victorian Popularizers Of Science

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 565 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2009-10-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226481173

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Victorian Popularizers of Science by Bernard Lightman Pdf

The ideas of Charles Darwin and his fellow Victorian scientists have had an abiding effect on the modern world. But at the time The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the British public looked not to practicing scientists but to a growing group of professional writers and journalists to interpret the larger meaning of scientific theories in terms they could understand and in ways they could appreciate. Victorian Popularizers of Science focuses on this important group of men and women who wrote about science for a general audience in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bernard Lightman examines more than thirty of the most prolific, influential, and interesting popularizers of the day, investigating the dramatic lecturing techniques, vivid illustrations, and accessible literary styles they used to communicate with their audience. By focusing on a forgotten coterie of science writers, their publishers, and their public, Lightman offers new insights into the role of women in scientific inquiry, the market for scientific knowledge, tensions between religion and science, and the complexities of scientific authority in nineteenth-century Britain.

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 499 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2008-07-31
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226481104

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Victorian Science in Context by Bernard Lightman Pdf

Victorians were fascinated by the flood of strange new worlds that science was opening to them. Exotic plants and animals poured into London from all corners of the Empire, while revolutionary theories such as the radical idea that humans might be descended from apes drew crowds to heated debates. Men and women of all social classes avidly collected scientific specimens for display in their homes and devoured literature about science and its practitioners. Victorian Science in Context captures the essence of this fascination, charting the many ways in which science influenced and was influenced by the larger Victorian culture. Contributions from leading scholars in history, literature, and the history of science explore questions such as: What did science mean to the Victorians? For whom was Victorian science written? What ideological messages did it convey? The contributors show how practical concerns interacted with contextual issues to mold Victorian science—which in turn shaped much of the relationship between modern science and culture.

Author : Aileen Fyfe,Bernard Lightman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 421 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2007-09-10
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226150024

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Science in the Marketplace by Aileen Fyfe,Bernard Lightman Pdf

The nineteenth century was an age of transformation in science, when scientists were rewarded for their startling new discoveries with increased social status and authority. But it was also a time when ordinary people from across the social spectrum were given the opportunity to participate in science, for education, entertainment, or both. In Victorian Britain science could be encountered in myriad forms and in countless locations: in panoramic shows, exhibitions, and galleries; in city museums and country houses; in popular lectures; and even in domestic conversations that revolved around the latest books and periodicals. Science in the Marketplace reveals this other side of Victorian scientific life by placing the sciences in the wider cultural marketplace, ultimately showing that the creation of new sites and audiences was just as crucial to the growing public interest in science as were the scientists themselves. By focusing attention on the scientific audience, as opposed to the scientific community or self-styled popularizers, Science in the Marketplace ably links larger societal changes—in literacy, in industrial technologies, and in leisure—to the evolution of “popular science.”

Author : Ian Hesketh
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2015-07-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317322962

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The Science of History in Victorian Britain by Ian Hesketh Pdf

Hesketh challenges accepted notions of a single scientific approach to history. Instead, he draws on a variety of sources – monographs, lectures, correspondence – from eminent Victorian historians to uncover numerous competing discourses.

Author : U. DeYoung
Publisher : Springer
Page : 443 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2011-03-28
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780230118058

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A Vision of Modern Science by U. DeYoung Pdf

An examination of a pivotal moment in the history of science through the career and cultural impact of the historically neglected Victorian physicist John Tyndall, establishing him as an important figure of the period, whose scientific discoveries and philosophy of science in society are still relevant today.

Author : Bernard V. Lightman
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : SCIENCE
ISBN : 1118620763

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A Companion to the History of Science by Bernard V. Lightman Pdf

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2023-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000948318

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Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain by Bernard Lightman Pdf

Scholars have tended to portray T.H. Huxley, John Tyndall, and their allies as the dominant cultural authority in the second half of the 19th century. Defenders of Darwin and his theory of evolution, these men of science are often seen as a potent force for the secularization of British intellectual and social life. In this collection of essays Bernard Lightman argues that historians have exaggerated the power of scientific naturalism to undermine the role of religion in middle and late-Victorian Britain. The essays deal with the evolutionary naturalists, especially the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, the physicist John Tyndall, and the philosopher of evolution, Herbert Spencer. But they look also at those who criticized this influential group of elite intellectuals, including aristocratic spokesman A. J Balfour, the novelist Samuel Butler, and the popularizer of science Frank Buckland. Focusing on the theme of the limitations of the cultural power of evolutionary naturalism, the volume points to the enduring strength of religion in Britain in the latter half of the 19th century.

Author : James A. Secord
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226203287

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Visions of Science by James A. Secord Pdf

The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary transformation in British political, literary, and intellectual life. There was widespread social unrest, and debates raged regarding education, the lives of the working class, and the new industrial, machine-governed world. At the same time, modern science emerged in Europe in more or less its current form, as new disciplines and revolutionary concepts, including evolution and the vastness of geologic time, began to take shape. In Visions of Science, James A. Secord offers a new way to capture this unique moment of change. He explores seven key books—among them Charles Babbage’s Reflections on the Decline of Science, Charles Lyell’s Principles ofGeology, Mary Somerville’s Connexion of the Physical Sciences, and Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus—and shows how literature that reflects on the wider meaning of science can be revelatory when granted the kind of close reading usually reserved for fiction and poetry. These books considered the meanings of science and its place in modern life, looking to the future, coordinating and connecting the sciences, and forging knowledge that would be appropriate for the new age. Their aim was often philosophical, but Secord shows it was just as often imaginative, projective, and practical: to suggest not only how to think about the natural world but also to indicate modes of action and potential consequences in an era of unparalleled change. Visions of Science opens our eyes to how genteel ladies, working men, and the literary elite responded to these remarkable works. It reveals the importance of understanding the physical qualities of books and the key role of printers and publishers, from factories pouring out cheap compendia to fashionable publishing houses in London’s West End. Secord’s vivid account takes us to the heart of an information revolution that was to have profound consequences for the making of the modern world.

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 629 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2019-11-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781119121145

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A Companion to the History of Science by Bernard Lightman Pdf

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the History of Science is a single volume companion that discusses the history of science as it is done today, providing a survey of the debates and issues that dominate current scholarly discussion, with contributions from leading international scholars. Provides a single-volume overview of current scholarship in the history of science edited by one of the leading figures in the field Features forty essays by leading international scholars providing an overview of the key debates and developments in the history of science Reflects the shift towards deeper historical contextualization within the field Helps communicate and integrate perspectives from the history of science with other areas of historical inquiry Includes discussion of non-Western themes which are integrated throughout the chapters Divided into four sections based on key analytic categories that reflect new approaches in the field

Author : Kargon, Robert H.
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2024-06-03
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781412833738

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Science in Victorian Manchester by Kargon, Robert H. Pdf

Author : Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2011-01-18
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781443828291

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Science in the Nursery by Laurence Talairach-Vielmas Pdf

This edited collection aims to examine the popularisation of science for children in Britain and France from the middle of the eighteenth century to the end of the Victorian period. It compares and contrasts for the first time popular science works published at the same time in the two countries, focusing both on non-fictional and fictional texts. Starting when children’s literature emerged as a genre to the end of the nineteenth century it addresses the ways in which popular science for children engaged with wider debates and issues, concerning such topics as gender or religion. Each individual essays brings home how children’s literature revealed contemporary tensions which professional scientists confronted. The wide range of scientific topics examined, from physics and astronomy to natural history and anthropology, offers a large spectrum of types of popular science works for children.

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2023-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000941579

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Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain by Bernard Lightman Pdf

Scholars have tended to portray T.H. Huxley, John Tyndall, and their allies as the dominant cultural authority in the second half of the 19th century. Defenders of Darwin and his theory of evolution, these men of science are often seen as a potent force for the secularization of British intellectual and social life. In this collection of essays Bernard Lightman argues that historians have exaggerated the power of scientific naturalism to undermine the role of religion in middle and late-Victorian Britain. The essays deal with the evolutionary naturalists, especially the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, the physicist John Tyndall, and the philosopher of evolution, Herbert Spencer. But they look also at those who criticized this influential group of elite intellectuals, including aristocratic spokesman A. J Balfour, the novelist Samuel Butler, and the popularizer of science Frank Buckland. Focusing on the theme of the limitations of the cultural power of evolutionary naturalism, the volume points to the enduring strength of religion in Britain in the latter half of the 19th century.

Author : Ralph O'Connor
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 557 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2008-09-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226616704

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The Earth on Show by Ralph O'Connor Pdf

At the turn of the nineteenth century, geology—and its claims that the earth had a long and colorful prehuman history—was widely dismissedasdangerous nonsense. But just fifty years later, it was the most celebrated of Victorian sciences. Ralph O’Connor tracks the astonishing growth of geology’s prestige in Britain, exploring how a new geohistory far more alluring than the standard six days of Creation was assembled and sold to the wider Bible-reading public. Shrewd science-writers, O’Connor shows, marketed spectacular visions of past worlds, piquing the public imagination with glimpses of man-eating mammoths, talking dinosaurs, and sea-dragons spawned by Satan himself. These authors—including men of science, women, clergymen, biblical literalists, hack writers, blackmailers, and prophets—borrowed freely from the Bible, modern poetry, and the urban entertainment industry, creating new forms of literature in order to transport their readers into a vanished and alien past. In exploring the use of poetry and spectacle in the promotion of popular science, O’Connor proves that geology’s success owed much to the literary techniques of its authors. An innovative blend of the history of science, literary criticism, book history, and visual culture, The Earth on Show rethinks the relationship between science and literature in the nineteenth century.

Author : Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2009-08-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780226466958

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Science on the Air by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette Pdf

Mr. Wizard’s World. Bill Nye the Science Guy. NPR’s Science Friday. These popular television and radio programs broadcast science into the homes of millions of viewers and listeners. But these modern series owe much of their success to the pioneering efforts of early-twentieth-century science shows like Adventures in Science and “Our Friend the Atom.” Science on the Air is the fascinating history of the evolution of popular science in the first decades of the broadcasting era. Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette transports readers to the early days of radio, when the new medium allowed innovative and optimistic scientists the opportunity to broadcast serious and dignified presentations over the airwaves. But the exponential growth of listenership in the 1920s, from thousands to millions, and the networks’ recognition that each listener represented a potential consumer, turned science on the radio into an opportunity to entertain, not just educate. Science on the Air chronicles the efforts of science popularizers, from 1923 until the mid-1950s, as they negotiated topic, content, and tone in order to gain precious time on the air. Offering a new perspective on the collision between science’s idealistic and elitist view of public communication and the unbending economics of broadcasting, LaFollette rewrites the history of the public reception of science in the twentieth century and the role that scientists and their institutions have played in both encouraging and inhibiting popularization. By looking at the broadcasting of the past, Science on the Air raises issues of concern to all those who seek to cultivate a scientifically literate society today.

Author : Simon Naylor
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 221 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2015-09-30
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781317316022

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Regionalizing Science by Simon Naylor Pdf

Victorian England, as is well known, produced an enormous amount of scientific endeavour, but what has previously been overlooked is the important role of geography on these developments. This book seeks to rectify this imbalance by presenting a historical geography of regional science.