From Publishers Weekly
Astronomy in the U.S., until approximately the 1880s, was largely a tool for determining latitude and longitude, time and tide. This surprising fact points to the enormous distance American science has traveled. In Bruce's absorbing social history, self-funded amateurs slowly give way to science as a vast collective enterprise. In the South, a pseudomedieval romanticism at odds with the scientific temperament blocked progress, but after the Civil War scientific investigation became an institutionalized, nationwide pursuit with backing from business and government. Bruce, author of books on Lincoln and Alexander Graham Bell, peoples his canvas with battling bone-hunters, moonlighting geology professors and chemists hard-put to find full-time jobs. The 19th century laid the groundwork for discoveries and innovations that would pour forth in the opening years of our century: X-rays, the electron, radioactivity, quantum theory. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Compared to European science during the period 1846 to 1876, American developments were relatively modest. Yet it was during this period that American science matured and that the infrastructures needed to sustain scientific progress were built. Bruce, author of Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the conquest of solitude and other books, focuses on the sociology, economics, and politics of science in the period and the interaction of science with American society and culture. He examines the physical and natural sciences, developments in technology, and the people and institutions that became the basis of the scientific establishment. A much-needed interpretive history of American science; highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Robert Paul, History of Science Prog., Dickinson Coll., Carlisle, Pa.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
