Download or read book Patronage Practice and the Culture of American Science written by Hugh Richard Slotten and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-06-24 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Hugh Richard Slotten explores the institutional and cultural history of science in the United States. The main focus is on the activities of Alexander Dallas Bache - great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin and the acknowledged "chief" of the American scientific community during the second third of the nineteenth century. Bache played a central role in the organization and management of a number of key scientific institutions, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Academy of Sciences. But his dominance in these institutions was made possible through his control of an organization less well known today, the United States Coast Survey, which he superintended from 1843 until his death in 1867. Under Bache's command the Coast Survey became the central scientific institution in antebellum America. Using richly detailed archival records, Slotten pursues an analysis of Bache and the Coast Survey that illuminates important historiographic themes. We gain a better understanding of the particular style of nineteenth-century American science by examining the role of the Coast Survey as a source of patronage. Perhaps most important, this study explores the ways in which scientific knowledge and practice are embedded within local contexts. Although Bache sought to use the Coast Survey to raise the status of American science partly by emulating European scientific elites, his efforts also reflected the cultural and political values of antebellum America. Slotten thus analyzes the interrelationship between political culture, patterns of patronage, and the institutional practice of science in the United States.
Download or read book Patronage Politics and Practice in Nineteenth century American Science written by Hugh Richard Slotten and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science Medicine and Technology written by Hugh Richard Slotten and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The entries in this encyclopedia explore the changing character of science, medicine, and technology in the United States; the key individuals, institutions, and organizations responsible for major developments; and the concepts, practices, and processes underlying these changes. The encyclopedia situates specific events, theories, practices, and institutions in their proper historical context and explores their impact on American society and culture.
Download or read book The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science Medicine and Technology written by Hugh Richard Slotten and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 1456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, medicine, and technology have become increasingly important to the average individual in modern society. The importance of these three fields is in many ways one of the defining characteristics of modernity. Understanding their history is essential for educated individuals. Science, medicine, and technology are not static endeavors but processes, bodies of knowledge, tools, and techniques that are constantly growing and changing. The entries in this encyclopedia explore the changing character of science, medicine, and technology in the United States; the key individuals, institutions, and organizations responsible for major developments; and the concepts, practices, and processes underlying these changes. Especially since the early decades of the twentieth century, American science, medicine, and technology have played dominant roles internationally. Entries explore distinctive characteristics of American institutions and culture that help explain this development.At the same time, the encyclopedia situates specific events, theories, practices, and institutions in their proper historical context and explores their impact on American society and culture. Entries are written by the experts in the field. Students not only from the humanities and social sciences but also from the sciences and the medical sciences should be attracted to the broad-ranging and in-depth analysis in the encyclopedia.
Download or read book An Anthology of Nineteenth Century American Science Writing written by C. R. Resetarits and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a brief anthology of the most influential writing by American scientists between 1800 and 1900. Arranged thematically and chronologically to highlight the progression of American science throughout the nineteenth century – from its beginnings in self-taught classification and exploration to the movement towards university education and specialization – it is the first collection of its kind. Each section begins with a biography, putting human faces to each time period, and introducing such notable figures as Thomas Jefferson and Louis Agassiz.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Science Volume 8 Modern Science in National Transnational and Global Context written by Hugh Richard Slotten and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume in the highly respected Cambridge History of Science series is devoted to exploring the history of modern science using national, transnational, and global frames of reference. Organized by topic and culture, its essays by distinguished scholars offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date nondisciplinary history of modern science currently available. Essays are grouped together in separate sections that represent larger regions: Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, and Latin America. Each of these regional groupings ends with a separate essay reflecting on the analysis in the preceding chapters. Intended to provide a balanced and inclusive treatment of the modern world, contributors analyze the history of science not only in local, national, and regional contexts but also with respect to the circulation of knowledge, tools, methods, people, and artifacts across national borders.
Download or read book A Companion to the History of American Science written by Georgina M. Montgomery and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-09-23 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the History of American Science offers a collection of essays that give an authoritative overview of the most recent scholarship on the history of American science. Covers topics including astronomy, agriculture, chemistry, eugenics, Big Science, military technology, and more Features contributions by the most accomplished scholars in the field of science history Covers pivotal events in U.S. history that shaped the development of science and science policy such as WWII, the Cold War, and the Women’s Rights movement
Download or read book Science and American Foreign Relations since World War II written by Greg Whitesides and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sciences played a critical role in American foreign policy after World War II. From atomic energy and satellites to the green revolution, scientific advances were central to American diplomacy in the early Cold War, as the United States leveraged its scientific and technical pre-eminence to secure alliances and markets. The growth of applied research in the 1970s, exemplified by the biotech industry, led the United States to promote global intellectual property rights. Priorities shifted with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as attention turned to information technology and environmental sciences. Today, international relations take place within a scientific and technical framework, whether in the headlines on global warming and the war on terror or in the fine print of intellectual property rights. Science and American Foreign Relations since World War II provides the historical background necessary to understand the contemporary geopolitics of science.
Download or read book History of Science in United States written by Marc Rothenberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 637 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Encyclopedia examines all aspects of the history of science in the United States, with a special emphasis placed on the historiography of science in America. It can be used by students, general readers, scientists, or anyone interested in the facts relating to the development of science in the United States. Special emphasis is placed in the history of medicine and technology and on the relationship between science and technology and science and medicine.
Download or read book History of Astronomy written by John Lankford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Encyclopedia traces the history of the oldest science from the ancient world to the space age in over 300 entries by leading experts.
Download or read book Surveying the Record written by Edward Carlos Carter and published by American Philosophical Society. This book was released on 1999 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Papers given at a conference on Scientific Exploration in North America to 1930 with topics including Cartography, Oceanic Exploration, Art, Anthropology, Lewis and Clark, and the West. This book adds much to our quest for knowledge of who and where we are by illuminating such themes as the role of maps and mapmaking in defining our national identify, the origins of Western exploration, the cultural clash found in the best-selling account of a 19th-century physician-explorer with Arctic peoples, the role of art in the service of science in bringing these newly discovered places and peoples into the Amer. parlor, and the impact of Mormon farming techniques on John Wesley Powell's famed 1878 Arid Region Report. Black and white maps and illus.
Download or read book Coast Lines written by Mark Monmonier and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the next century, sea levels are predicted to rise at unprecedented rates, causing flooding around the world, from the islands of Malaysia and the canals of Venice to the coasts of Florida and California. These rising water levels pose serious challenges to all aspects of coastal existence—chiefly economic, residential, and environmental—as well as to the cartographic definition and mapping of coasts. It is this facet of coastal life that Mark Monmonier tackles in Coast Lines. Setting sail on a journey across shifting landscapes, cartographic technology, and climate change, Monmonier reveals that coastlines are as much a set of ideas, assumptions, and societal beliefs as they are solid black lines on maps. Whether for sailing charts or property maps, Monmonier shows, coastlines challenge mapmakers to capture on paper a highly irregular land-water boundary perturbed by tides and storms and complicated by rocks, wrecks, and shoals. Coast Lines is peppered with captivating anecdotes about the frustrating effort to expunge fictitious islands from nautical charts, the tricky measurement of a coastline’s length, and the contentious notions of beachfront property and public access. Combing maritime history and the history of technology, Coast Lines charts the historical progression from offshore sketches to satellite images and explores the societal impact of coastal cartography on everything from global warming to homeland security. Returning to the form of his celebrated Air Apparent, Monmonier ably renders the topic of coastal cartography accessible to both general readers and historians of science, technology, and maritime studies. In the post-Katrina era, when the map of entire regions can be redrawn by a single natural event, the issues he raises are more important than ever.
Download or read book Exploration and Science written by Michael Sean Reidy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-12-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume explores the intricate, mutually dependent relationship between science and exploration—how each has repeatedly built on the discoveries of the other and, in the process, opened new frontiers. A simple question: Which came first, advances in navigation or successful voyages of discovery? A complicated answer: Both and neither. For more than four centuries, scientists and explorers have worked together—sometimes intentionally and sometimes not—in an ongoing, symbiotic partnership. When early explorers brought back exotic flora and fauna from newly discovered lands, scientists were able to challenge ancient authorities for the first time. As a result, scientists not only invented new navigational tools to encourage exploration, but also created a new approach to studying nature, in which observations were more important than reason and authority. The story of the relationship between science and exploration, analyzed here for the first time, is nothing less than the history of modern science and the expanding human universe.
Download or read book The Coldest Crucible written by Michael F. Robinson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1800s, “Arctic Fever” swept across the nation as dozens of American expeditions sailed north to the Arctic to find a sea route to Asia and, ultimately, to stand at the North Pole. Few of these missions were successful, and many men lost their lives en route. Yet failure did little to dampen the enthusiasm of new explorers or the crowds at home that cheered them on. Arctic exploration, Michael F. Robinson argues, was an activity that unfolded in America as much as it did in the wintry hinterland. Paying particular attention to the perils facing explorers at home, The Coldest Crucible examines their struggles to build support for the expeditions before departure, defend their claims upon their return, and cast themselves as men worthy of the nation’s full attention. In so doing, this book paints a new portrait of polar voyagers, one that removes them from the icy backdrop of the Arctic and sets them within the tempests of American cultural life. With chronological chapters featuring emblematic Arctic explorers—including Elisha Kent Kane, Charles Hall, and Robert Peary—The Coldest Crucible reveals why the North Pole, a region so geographically removed from Americans, became an iconic destination for discovery.
Download or read book A Short Bright Flash Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse written by Theresa Levitt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-07-29 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Combin[es] matters of biography, science, engineering, technology, art, history, economics and politics seemingly effortlessly and definitely seamlessly. An excellent book and a joy to read.”—Henry Petroski, Wall Street Journal Augustin Fresnel (1788–1827) shocked the scientific elite with his unique understanding of the physics of light. The lens he invented was a brilliant feat of engineering that made lighthouses blaze many times brighter, farther, and more efficiently. Battling the establishment, his own poor health, and the limited technology of the time, Fresnel was able to achieve his goal of illuminating the entire French coast. At first, the British sought to outdo the new Fresnel-equipped lighthouses as a matter of national pride. Americans, too, resisted abandoning their primitive lamps, but the superiority of the Fresnel lens could not be denied for long. Soon, from Dunkirk to Saigon, shores were brightened with it. The Fresnel legacy played an important role in geopolitical events, including the American Civil War. No sooner were Fresnel lenses finally installed along U.S. shores than they were drafted: the Union blockaded the Confederate coast; the Confederacy set about thwarting it by dismantling and hiding or destroying the powerful new lights. Levitt’s scientific and historical account, rich in anecdote and personality, brings to life the fascinating untold story of Augustin Fresnel and his powerful invention.
Download or read book Alexander Dallas Bache written by Axel Jansen and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander Dallas Bache was the key leader of antebellum American scientists. Presuming his profession to be a herald of an integrated U.S. nation-state, Bache guided organizations such as the United States Coast Survey, then the country's largest scientific enterprise. In this analytical biography, Axel Jansen explains Bache's efforts to build and shape public institutions as a national foundation for a universalistic culture—efforts that culminated during the Civil War when Bache helped found the National Academy of Sciences as a symbol for the continued viability of an American nation. Die Open-Access-Version dieser Publikation wird gefördert mit freundlicher Unterstützung des Deutschen Historischen Instituts Washington. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Download or read book Frontiers of Science written by Cameron B. Strang and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cameron Strang takes American scientific thought and discoveries away from the learned societies, museums, and teaching halls of the Northeast and puts the production of knowledge about the natural world in the context of competing empires and an expanding republic in the Gulf South. People often dismissed by starched northeasterners as nonintellectuals--Indian sages, African slaves, Spanish officials, Irishmen on the make, clearers of land and drivers of men--were also scientific observers, gatherers, organizers, and reporters. Skulls and stems, birds and bugs, rocks and maps, tall tales and fertile hypotheses came from them. They collected, described, and sent the objects that scientists gazed on and interpreted in polite Philadelphia. They made knowledge. Frontiers of Science offers a new framework for approaching American intellectual history, one that transcends political and cultural boundaries and reveals persistence across the colonial and national eras. The pursuit of knowledge in the United States did not cohere around democratic politics or the influence of liberty. It was, as in other empires, divided by multiple loyalties and identities, organized through contested hierarchies of ethnicity and place, and reliant on violence. By discovering the lost intellectual history of one region, Strang shows us how to recover a continent for science.
