This collection of sixteen essays on the history of science in America ranges chronologically from the early nineteenth century to the present. The essays reflect the ever-broadening scope of the discipline: from the pursuit of science in elite academic, industrial, and governmental settings to science at home and in the movies. Such timely issues as women and science, the ethics of science, and the bomb are examined.

Contributions include Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, "Parlors, Primers, and Public Schooling: Education for Science in Nineteenth-Century America;" Margaret Rossiter, "'Women's Work' in Science, 1880-1910;" Philip J. Pauly, "The Development of High School Biology: New York City, 1900-1925;" Susan E. Lederer, "Political Animals: The Shaping of Biomedical Research Literature in Twentieth-Century America;" Stanley Goldberg, "Inventing a Climate of Opinion: Vannevar Bush and the Decision to Build the Bomb;" Daniel J. Kevles, "The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942-1945: A Political Interpretation of Science: The Endless Frontier;" David A. Hollinger, "Science as a Weapon in Kulturkämpfe in the United States During and After World War II;" and others.

These essays originally were published in Isis, a publication of the History of Science Society.

This stimulating collection of twenty-two articles is intended not only to explore a range of scientific topics but to engage readers in historiographical debates and methodological issues that surround the study of ancient and medieval science. A convenient sampling of classic and contemporary scholarship, it will appeal to students and specialists alike.

Contributors include Francesca Rochberg, David Pingree, G. E. R. Lloyd, Heinrich von Staden, Martin Bernal, Alexander Jones, Bernard Goldstein, Alan Bowen, Owsei Temkin, David Lindberg, Steven McCluskey, Linda Voigts, Edward Grant, Bernard Goldstein, Victor Roberts, Lynn Thorndike, Helen Lemay, William Newman, A. Mark Smith, Nancy Siraisi, Michael McVaugh, and Brian P. Copenhaver.

This collection brings together thirteen articles on early modern Western science, each representing an important contribution to the ways in which the scientific revolution is regarded today.

The anthology features classic and prize-winning articles by renowned scholars, including "Totius in verba: Rhetoric and Authority in the Early Royal Society," by Peter Dear; "The Melanchthon Circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg Interpretation of the Copernican Theory," by Robert S. Westman; "Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science," by Owen Hannaway; "Geography as Self-Definition in Early Modern England," by Lesley B. Cormack; "What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?" by Keith Hutchison; and "Galileo, Motion, and Essences," by Margaret J. Osler.

Also, "Scientific Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope," by Richard S. Westfall; "The Telescope in the Seventeenth Century," by Albert Van Helden; "Descartes on Refraction," by Bruce S. Eastwood; "Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism," by Christoph Meinel; "Robert Boyle and Structural Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century," by Thomas S. Kuhn; "Newton's Alchemy and His Theory of Matter," by B. J. T. Dobbs; "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," by Steven Shapin; and "Maria Winkelmann at the Berlin Academy," by Londa Scheibinger.

This carefully structured collection will help readers approach complex questions—involving argument and experiment, audience and agency, authority and institutions.