Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Total 47 results found.

The Science of History in Victorian Britain

The Science of History in Victorian Britain

Making the Past Speak
New attitudes towards history in nineteenth-century Britain saw a rejection of romantic, literary techniques in favour of a professionalized, scientific methodology. The development of history as a scientific discipline was undertaken by several key historians of the Victorian period, influenced by German scientific history and British natural philosophy. This study ...
A Pioneer of Connection

A Pioneer of Connection

Recovering the Life and Work of Oliver Lodge
Sir Oliver Lodge was a polymathic scientific figure who linked the Victorian Age with the Second World War, a reassuring figure of continuity across his long life and career. A physicist and spiritualist, inventor and educator, author and authority, he was one of the most famous public figures of British ...
A Science of Our Own

A Science of Our Own

Exhibitions and the Rise of Australian Public Science

The Development of a Distinctive Public Science in Nineteenth-Century Australia

Geographies of City Science

Geographies of City Science

Urban Lives and Origin Debates in Late Victorian Dublin

The Crucial Role Urban Spaces Played in the Production of Scientific Knowledge in Dublin

News from Mars

News from Mars

Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910

Explores a Transatlantic News Economy That Circulated Information and Actively Shaped New Claims about the Red Planet

The Life and Legend of James Watt

The Life and Legend of James Watt

Collaboration, Natural Philosophy, and the Improvement of the Steam Engine

A Deeper Understanding of the Work and Character of the Great Eighteenth-Century Engineer

Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life

Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life

Organic Vitality in Germany around 1800

Examines Debates Surrounding the First Articulations of a Science of Life and Experiments on the Processes of Organic Vitality

Anxious Times

Anxious Times

Medicine and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain

The Pressures of Modern Life and Their Impact on Bodily and Mental Health in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Historicizing Humans

Historicizing Humans

Deep Time, Evolution, and Race in Nineteenth-Century British Sciences

Historicizing Humans takes a critical approach to nineteenth-century human history, as the contributors consider how these histories were shaped by the colonial world, and for various scientific, religious, and sociopolitical purposes. This volume highlights the underlying questions and shared assumptions that emerged as various human developmental theories competed for dominance throughout the British Empire.

Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910

Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910

Kew Observatory influenced and was influenced by many of the larger developments in the physical sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century, while many of the major figures involved were in some way affiliated with Kew.

Lee T. Macdonald explores the extraordinary story of this important scientific institution as it rose to prominence during the Victorian era. His book offers fresh new insights into key historical issues in nineteenth-century science: the patronage of science; relations between science and government; the evolution of the observatory sciences; and the origins and early years of the National Physical Laboratory, once an extension of Kew and now the largest applied physics organization in the United Kingdom.

James Watt, Chemist

James Watt, Chemist

Understanding the Origins of the Steam Age

In the Victorian era, James Watt became an iconic engineer, but in his own time he was also an influential chemist. David Philip Miller examines Watt’s illustrious engineering career in light of his parallel interest in chemistry, arguing that Watt’s conception of steam engineering relied upon chemical understandings.

Domesticating Electricity

Domesticating Electricity

Technology, Uncertainty and Gender, 1880–1914

An innovative and original socio-cultural study of the history of electricity during the late Victorian and Edward periods.

Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880

Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880

How did the brewing of beer become a scientific process? James Sumner explores this question by charting the theory and practice of the trade in Britain and Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Science Museums in Transition

Science Museums in Transition

Cultures of Display in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America

This volume explores the transformation of scientific exhibitions and museums during the nineteenth century. Contributors focus on comparative case studies across Britain and America, examining the people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge during this period.

Free Will and the Human Sciences in Britain, 1870-1910

Free Will and the Human Sciences in Britain, 1870-1910

From the late nineteenth century onward religion gave way to science as the dominant force in society. This led to a questioning of the principle of free will—if the workings of the human mind could be reduced to purely physiological explanations, then what place was there for human agency and self-improvement?

Smith takes an in-depth look at the problem of free will through the prism of different disciplines. Physiology, psychology, philosophy, evolutionary theory, ethics, history and sociology all played a part in the debates that took place. His subtly nuanced navigation through these arguments has much to contribute to our understanding of Victorian and Edwardian science and culture, as well as having relevance to current debates on the role of genes in determining behaviour.

Total 47 results found.