Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

This book is for anyone who is curious about how all the gadgets making up modern culture came to be.  Johnson, a journalist and an author, e.g.,Where Good Ideas Come From (CH, Jun'11, 48-5785), covers six topics in chapters titled "Glass," "Cold," "Sound," "Clean," "Time," and "Light," addressing each subject from its ancient origins to many of the offshoots people take for granted today.  Tales include the attempt to lift the entire city of Chicago with jacks to make the sewers work, the man taken to court for daring to test chlorinated drinking water, and the inventor who tested a sound recording device decades before Bell but forgot one essential feature: a means to play it back!  The book's conclusion is one of the most interesting tales and concerns Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first primitive computer.  Especially fascinating is the story of his programmer, Ada Lovelace, a countess and daughter of the notorious poet Lord Byron.  The book is profusely illustrated and is supported by six pages of notes and a 12-page bibliography.  It would fit well on the shelves of public and school libraries as well as on the bookshelves of anybody interested in the evolution of science and technology.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Scholars have recently turned to visual and material culture to enrich historical studies of science, e.g., Lorrain Daston and Peter Galison'sObjectivity (CH, May'08, 45-4902).  Appreciation of aural culture is a scarcer commodity.  Pesic (St. Johns College, Santa Fe) corrects this scarcity.  Taking the long view, as he did inSky in a Bottle (CH, May'06, 43-5253), Pesic recounts 18 episodes from ancient Greece to the 20th century in which music provided critical inspiration, theoretical insight, and a source of analogy for scientific research.  The well-written book is thoroughly researched and makes a compelling case for the centrality of music and musical thinking to the development of modern science.  The density of historical detail might make the book as a whole challenging for less experienced readers, but each chapter stands on its own and can be excerpted.  The text is enriched throughout with images and audio samples; the latter are available on the publisher's website and are also integrated seamlessly into the e-book.  The result is a novel, creative, scholarly contribution and a flexible pedagogical tool.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Max Plancks name suffuses the language of physics, but even many historians of science know little of the person or his tumultuous life, which spanned two world wars, unprecedented upheaval in his home field of physics, and crushing personal tragedy.  Brown (physics, Univ. of San Francisco) sets out to rectify that in his first book, a biography of the father of quantum mechanics.  Brown paints an intimate portrait of Planck in lithe, lively prose and avoids the worshipful tones that sometimes mark popular scientific biographies.  Readers can expect a detailed personal narrative interwoven with discussions of the contradictions Planck lived as a supporter of his Jewish colleagues while choosing to remain in Nazi Germany.  Although this is a popular history that focuses more on its subjects life than his work, Brown demonstrates careful attention to the historical literature.  The brief discussions of the scientific research conducted by Planck and his cohort, interspersed throughout, are deftly described and true to their times.  The story of Plancks life is a remarkable one, and no fuller or more readable account exists in the English language.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Secord (Univ. of Cambridge), author ofVictorian Sensation(CH, Jul'01, 38-6148), continues his superb work on Victorian scientific books in this new volume.  In Visions of Science, he analyzes seven books from early 19th-century Britain that explored the place of the sciences in Victorian life.  Secord considers well-known books, such as Charles LyellsPrinciples of Geologyand Mary SomervillesOn the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, alongside less remembered volumes, such as Humphry DavysConsolations in Travel,and explores each books vision for ways science might shape the future of humanity.  Visions of Science opens with an introduction that illuminates both the print culture and the political and social climate of early Victorian Britain, then moves into chapters that consider each of the books in turn.  The conclusion considers the long-term implications of these books Utopian ideas about science.  The prose is engaging, and the book is a delight to read; the final chapter on Thomas Carlyles satirical treatiseSartor Resartusis a particular treat. Visions of Sciencewill be essential reading for historians of science, students of Victorian Britain, and anyone interested in book history.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty, and professionals/practitioners.