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4Maria Rentetzi, Seduced by Radium: How Industry Transformed Science in the American Marketplace Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022. Pp. xi + 292. ISBN 978-0-8229-4706-6. $35.00 (hardback) (review)British Journal for the History of Science 1-2. forthcoming.
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8The zymotechnic roots of biotechnologyBritish Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 127-144. 1992.Louis Pasteur plays a role in the creation myth of biotechnology which resembles the heroic position of his great antagonist Liebig in the story of agricultural chemistry. His intellectual development, expressed in a great book, supposedly underlay a revolution in practice. Similarly, biotechnology is conventionally traced back to Pasteur, through whose influence, it has been assumed, ancient crafts were transformed into an applicable science of microbiology. The emphasis on Pasteur's work in th…Read more
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15The technology—science interaction: Walter Reppe and cyclooctatetraene chemistryBritish Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 145-167. 1992.This is another paper about science and her powerful companion , to use A. W. Hofmann's colourful phrase. Whereas most papers on the interaction of science and technology deal with the transfer of knowledge from academic science to industrial technology, this paper is about the contribution of an industrial researcher to academic chemistry. The boost Reppe's research gave to the study of aromaticity parallels the impact of the early synthetic dye chemistry on structural organic chemistry. This c…Read more
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1The zymotechnic roots of biotechnologyBritish Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 127-144. 1992.Louis Pasteur plays a role in the creation myth of biotechnology which resembles the heroic position of his great antagonist Liebig in the story of agricultural chemistry. His intellectual development, expressed in a great book, supposedly underlay a revolution in practice. Similarly, biotechnology is conventionally traced back to Pasteur, through whose influence, it has been assumed, ancient crafts were transformed into an applicable science of microbiology. The emphasis on Pasteur's work in th…Read more
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16Technology in decline: a search for useful concepts: The case of the Dutch madder industry in the nineteenth centuryBritish Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 5-26. 1992.Until late in the nineteenth century, madder was the most popular natural red dye. Holland was the largest and best-known supplier. As early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the province of Zeeland and adjoining parts of the provinces of South Holland and Brabant developed into important producers. In the course of the seventeenth century these areas even succeeded in acquiring a monopoly position. Early in the nineteenth century, however, this position came under attack because France…Read more
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14The emergence of research laboratories in the dyestuffs industry, 1870–1900British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 91-111. 1992.The focus of this paper is the emergence of the research laboratory as an organizational entity within the company structure of industrial firms. The thesis defended is that, after some groundwork by British and French firms, the managements of several of the larger German dye companies set up their own research organizations between the years 1877 and 1883. The analysis of the emergence of the industrial research laboratory in the dyestuffs industry presented here makes clear that both the olde…Read more
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The British chemical industry and the indigo tradeBritish Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 113-125. 1992.Even before the success of William Perkin's mauve at the end of the 1850s, there were attempts to synthesize artificial dyes that were identical with those found in nature. Alizarin, the dye derived from the madder root, was the first to be investigated, and it was Perkin who was to file for a patent in June 1869 just one day before the German chemists Heinrich Caro, Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann. Rivalry between the parties soon turned to negotiations and collaboration. Perkin's company retai…Read more
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11Organic Chemistry and High Technology, 1850–1950British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 1-4. 1992.
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9The zymotechnic roots of biotechnologyBritish Journal for the History of Science 25 (1): 127-144. 1992.Louis Pasteur plays a role in the creation myth of biotechnology which resembles the heroic position of his great antagonist Liebig in the story of agricultural chemistry. His intellectual development, expressed in a great book, supposedly underlay a revolution in practice. Similarly, biotechnology is conventionally traced back to Pasteur, through whose influence, it has been assumed, ancient crafts were transformed into an applicable science of microbiology. The emphasis on Pasteur's work in th…Read more
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10Introduction (FOCUS: APPLIED SCIENCE)Isis 103 515-517. 2012.Such categories as applied science and pure science can be thought of as “ideological.” They have been contested in the public sphere, exposing long-term intellectual commitments, assumptions, balances of power, and material interests. This group of essays explores the contest over applied science in Britain and the United States during the nineteenth century. The essays look at the concept in the context of a variety of neighbors, including pure science, technology, and art. They are closely re…Read more
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3The unstable collectionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 68 70-72. 2018.
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11Margaret Bradley, Charles Dupin and His Influence on France: The Contributions of a Mathematician, Educator, Engineer, and Statesman. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. Pp. xx+368. ISBN 978-1-60497-751-6. £71.99 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 46 (3): 529-530. 2013.
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13“Applied Science”: A Phrase in Search of a MeaningIsis 103 (3): 537-545. 2012.The term “applied science,” as it came to be popularly used in the 1870s, was a hybrid of three earlier concepts. The phrase “applied science” itself had been coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817, translating the German Kantian term “angewandte Wissenschaft.” It was popularized through the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, which was structured on principles inherited from Coleridge and edited by men with sympathetic views. Their concept of empirical as opposed to a priori science was hybridized …Read more
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15Representing scale: What should be special about the heritage of mass science?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 55 117-119. 2016.
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1Lancastrian Chemist: The Early Years of Sir Edward Frankland by Colin A. Russell (review)Isis 78 495-496. 1987.
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12Embodied Odysseys: Relics of stories about journeys through past, present, and futureStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (4): 639-642. 2013.This paper argues that the heritage represented by a museum should be seen not just in its individual objects but also in the relationships between them. The Conservatoire Nationale des Arts et Métiers and the Science Museum in London, the earliest great European science museums, were deeply concerned with the relationship between science and practice. The foundation speeches of the Deutsches Museum emphasised the concern with both past and future. Such ancestry provided hard-to-escape templates…Read more
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The Uses of Life: A History of BiotechnologyJournal of the History of Biology 29 (1): 153-154. 1996.
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1A History Of The International Chemical Industry By Fred Aftalion; Otto Theodor Benfey (review)Isis 84 407-408. 1993.
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10Steven Shapin, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Pp. xvii+468. ISBN 978-0-226-75024-8. $29.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 42 (4): 632. 2009.
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39Miriam R. Levin, Sophie Forgan, Martina Hessler, Robert H. Kargon and Maurice Low, Urban Modernity: Cultural Innovation in the Second Industrial Revolution. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2010. Pp. x+272. ISBN 978-0-262-01398-7. £22.95 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 44 (2): 301-302. 2011.
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Invisible Connections, Instruments, Institutions and ScienceHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 17 (1): 173-206. 1995.
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10The Cancer Mission: Social Contexts of Biomedical Research. Kenneth E. Studer, Daryl E. ChubinIsis 72 (4): 659-660. 1981.
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4Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R & D, 1902-1980 by David A. Hounshell; John Kenly Smith (review)Isis 80 732-734. 1989.
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2Lancastrian Chemist: The Early Years of Sir Edward Frankland. Colin A. RussellIsis 78 (3): 495-496. 1987.
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56Framed in the public sphere: Tools for the conceptual history of “applied science"–a review paperHistory of Science 51 (4): 413-433. 2013.
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23History Teaches Us That Confronting Antibiotic Resistance Requires Stronger Global Collective ActionJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 43 (s3): 27-32. 2015.Antibiotic development and usage, and antibiotic resistance in particular, are today considered global concerns, simultaneously mandating local and global perspectives and actions. Yet such global considerations have not always been part of antibiotic policy formation, and those who attempt to formulate a globally coordinated response to antibiotic resistance will need to confront a history of heterogeneous, often uncoordinated, and at times conflicting reform efforts, whose legacies remain appa…Read more
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3Archives of the British Chemical Industry, 1750-1914: A Handlist by Peter J. T. Morris; Colin A. Russell (review)Isis 81 402-403. 1990.