History of Science

The concept of a chemical element is foundational within the field of chemistry, but there is wide disagreement over its definition. Even the Inter...

In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. In this bedrock of biology books Darwin carved a new origin-story for all life: evolutio...

Between the 1880s and the 1930s, children became the focus of unprecedented scientific and professional interest in modernizing societies worldwide...

What was Albert Einstein like as a person? How did J. Robert Oppenheimer's religious background impact his scientific endeavors? Why did John Stewa...

A new biography of Isaac Newton that reveals the extraordinary influence that the study of alchemy had on the greatest Early Modern scientific disc...

For 60 years, scientists from the United States and the Soviet Union participated in state-organized programs of collaboration. But what really hap...

Bodily contrasts – from the colour of hair, eyes and skin to the shape of faces and skeletons – allowed the English of the seventeenth and early ei...

Plant cell walls have been relevant for human survival throughout evolution, from cell walls recognised as an essential ingredient in human and liv...

The revolution is here. In breakthrough after breakthrough, pioneering physicists are unlocking a new quantum universe which provides a better repr...

A major rethinking of the European novel and its relationship to early evolutionary scienceThe 120 years between Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) ...

'A delight' Dara O Briain'A witty, smart writer who has a great talent' Bill GatesWhy are most gases invisible, odourless and tasteless? Why do som...

This book takes the unique approach of examining number theory as it emerged in the 17th through 19th centuries. It leads to an understanding of to...

This study explores the practice of scientific enquiry as it took place in the eighteenth-century home. While histories of science have identified ...

The 28th volume in a 29-volume set which contain all Charles Darwin's published works. Darwin was one of the most influential figures of the 19th c...

This is the second volume of a six volume compendium on the correspondences of John Wallis (1616-1703). Wallis was Savilian Professor of Geometry a...

Our lives, states of health, relationships, behaviour, experiences of the natural world, and the technologies that shape our contemporary existence...

The march of science has never proceeded smoothly. It has been marked through the years by episodes of drama and comedy, of failure as well as triu...