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The following is a selection of new books in CHF's Othmer library. All of these books are available for borrowing and can be reserved through our online catalog. Click on the links for more information.
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Didier Kahn. Alchimie et Paracelsisme en France (1567-1625). 2007.
Kahn beautifully presents the flowering of alchemical literatures in France and the rest of Europe alongside the evolution of Paracelsianism. The panorama notes the works’ liveliness and diversity and details colorful debates between followers and adversaries of the German medicus chemicus as well as those among the Paracelsians themselves. Not only are the French and nearby Swiss and Belgian movements described, but also their German and Italian counterparts from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century. A must-have item!
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Guy Ogilvy. The Alchemist’s Kitchen: Extraordinary Potions and Curious Notions. 2006.
If you are curious about what alchemy is but find a thick, footnoted scholarly account too much to digest, Ogilvy’s book might be just what you are looking for. It is an enjoyable and colorful introduction to the art of making gold, in a charmingly old-fashioned layout with many beautiful and informative illustrations. Right from the workshop of a practicing alchemist, it makes for a good read before the fireplace on a winter evening!
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Hiro Hirai. Le Concept de Semence dans les Théories de la Matière à la Renaissance: de Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi. 2005.
Hirai’s award-winning book is a comprehensive account of the evolution of the concept of seeds (semina) in Renaissance thought. Natural philosophers made use of this notion in their theories on matter, and this survey focuses on those most influential in turning the metaphysical idea into a scientific concept: starting from the Florentine Neo-Platonist Ficino and his circle in the 15th century; through the exponents of Paracelsian thought; to the 17th-century French atomist Gassendi.
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Christy Campbell. The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World. 2004.
Were it not for the coordinated efforts of the French botanist Émile Planchon and the American entomologist Charles Valentine Riley in the second half of the 19th century, the world might now be entirely bereft of wine. In the 1860s, microscopic phylloxera vastatrix aphids were accidentally brought from America to France and devastated thousands of acres of vineyards across Europe. Campbell tells the story of the scientists, businesspeople, agricultural administrators, farm workers, and politicians who succeeded in stopping this ecological and economic disaster. Their work not only served as a public demonstration of Darwin’s theory of evolution, but the global wine industry still relies on the techniques developed by Planchon and Riley.
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Carroll Pursell. Technology in Postwar America: A History. 2007.
Focusing on national programs and technologies traditionally covered in history of technology courses, Pursell’s easy-to-read narrative functions as an excellent introduction to post-WWII technology for interested parties. Emphasizing the period between 1945 and 1970, with a shorter portion covering Star Wars and recent technologies garnering the attention of Congress, it cleanly synthesizes existing research into a single text. This book questions the usefulness of the term “technology,” presents national programs as “masculine” and consumption as “feminine,” and improves your interest among others on the cocktail circuit.
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The Public Good: Knowledge as the Foundation for a Democratic Society. 2008.
The 2007 meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society celebrated “Knowledge as the Foundation for a Democratic Society.” These conference proceedings provide all the benefits of a conference without the burden of attending it. Topics summarized here include “Religion and the Enlightenment,” “The Media and Society,” “Science, Health and an Aging Society,” and “Energy Choices and Global Warming.” To be browsed with or without a Styrofoam cup of tepid coffee.
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Sarah Irving. Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire. 2008.
Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and Samuel Hartlib and his Circle all feature in this new account of how the concept of the British Empire was established in the 17th century. Irving proposes a strong connection between the biblical dominion of man over the Garden of Eden and the early English colonization of the Atlantic world. To be read while munching an apple (no matter whether one out of the Garden, the proverbial one from Newton’s physics, or one from anywhere around the Atlantic). |
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Michael D. Gordin, Karl Hall, and Alexei Kojevnikov, eds. Intelligentsia Science: The Russian Century, 1860–1960. Osiris 23:1. 2008.
A welcome addition to the already excellent themed issues of Osiris, this volume investigates “intelligentsia”: the role of the educated elite in Russia and the Soviet Union, particularly in the assimilation of science and technology into Russian culture. Find out more about intelligentsia as a social organization, for instance, in “German Inflections on the Professionalization of Russian Chemistry in the 1860s”; about intelligentsia as political agent (including an article on “Women and Science in Russia, 1860–1940”); and about intelligentsia as utopia (e.g., in a discussion of the discovery of immune cells). Udachi!
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