Some Reading Strategies for History Courses: A List of Informal Suggestions
Key
[PD] = Dear, Peter. The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World. University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780226139487. [Preview with Google Books]
[DL] = Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science. 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780226482057. [Preview with Google Books]
LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
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1 | Introduction | |
1. Matter | ||
2 | The stuff of matter in the ancient world |
RequiredKirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield. Excerpt from "The Ionian Thinkers: Thales of Miletus." In The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 88-95. ISBN: 9780521274555. [Preview with Google Books] Aristotle. Book II, parts 1-3 in Physics. Translated by R. P. Hardie, and R. K. Gaye. (PDF) [DL], pp. 25-58. SuggestedLloyd, G. E. R. Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle. W. W. Norton & Co., 1974, pp. 125-146. ISBN: 9780393005837. |
3 | Alchemy and experiment in the Renaissance |
RequiredStarkey, George. Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence. Edited by William R. Newman, and Lawrence M. Principe. University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 127-129, and 170-175. ISBN: 9780226577012. Boyle, Robert. "To the Reader," and "Experiment 1." In New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air. Oxford UK: H. Hall, 1660. ISBN: 9781240795727 (PDF). Dear, Peter. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500-1700. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press, 2009, pp. 127-144. ISBN: 9780691142067. SuggestedShapin, Steven. "Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology." Social Studies of Science 14, no. 4 (1984): 481-520. (PDF) |
4 | Textbooks and chemical order, from Lavoisier to Mendeleev |
RequiredLavoisier, Antoine-Laurent. Elements of Chemistry, in a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries. Illustrated with Thirteen Copperplates. Translated by Robert Kerr. Gale ECCO, 2010. ISBN: 9781140937531. [PD] "The Chemical Revolution Thwarted by Atoms." Pp. 67-89. SuggestedBensaude-Vincent, Bernadette. "A View of the Chemical Revolution Through Contemporary Textbooks: Lavoisier, Fourcroy, and Chaptal." British Journal for the History of Science 23 (1990): 435-460. |
5 | Quantum alchemy? |
RequiredSmyth, Henry DeWolf. Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. Princeton University Press, 1945, pp. 206-226. ISBN: 9780804717229. (PDF) [PD] "How to Understand Nature? Einstein, Bohr, and the Quantum Universe." Pp. 141-172. SuggestedHoddeson, Lillian. "Mission Change in the Laboratory: The Los Alamos Implosion Program, 1943-1945." In Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research. Edited by Peter Galison, and Bruce Hevly. Stanford University Press, 1992, pp. 265-289. ISBN: 9780804718790. [Preview with Google Books] |
2. Nature | ||
6 | The nature of nature in ancient and medieval Worlds |
RequiredGrant, Edward. "Introduction to The Art of Falconry." In A Source Book in Medieval Science. Edited by E. Grant. Harvard University Press, 1974, pp. 657-659. ISBN: 9780674823600. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. Selections from The Art of Falconry being the De arte venandi cum avibus of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. Translated and edited by Casey A. Wood, and F. Marjorie Fyfe. Stanford University Press, 1943, pp. 3-15, 64-70, 97-99, and 105-107. ISBN: 9780804703741. [Preview with Google Books] Tufty, Barbara. "Falconry Sport Allowed." The Science News-Letter 86, no. 6 (August 8, 1964): 95. SuggestedPark, Katharine. "Nature in Person: Medieval and Renaissance Allegories and Emblems." In The Moral Authority of Nature. Edited by Lorraine Daston, and Fernando Vidal. University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 50-73. ISBN: 9780226136813. [Preview with Google Books]. Josselyn, John. New England's Rarities Discovered [1674]. Applewood Books, 1986. ISBN: 9780918222794. [Preview with Google Books] |
7 | Exploring, collecting, classifying |
RequiredLinnaeus, Carl. "Observations on The Three Kingdoms of Nature." In Systema Naturae 1735. Translated by S. J. Engel-Ledeboer, and H. Engel. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. HES & De Graaf Publishers, 2003, pp. 17-30. ISBN: 9789060041048. ———. Sample original pages from Systema Naturae 1735 Latin edition (PDF – 2.4MB) Koerner, Lisbet. "Carl Linnaeus in His Time and Place." In Cultures of Natural History. 2nd ed. Edited by N. Jardine, J. A. Secord, and E. C. Spary. Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 145-163. ISBN: 9780521558945. [Preview with Google Books] [PD] "A Place for Everything: The Classification of the World." Pp. 39-67. SuggestedFoucault, Michel. "Classifying." In The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 125-145. ISBN: 9780679753353. |
8 | Evolution and the origin of species |
RequiredDarwin, Charles. "Introduction," "Struggle for Existence," and "Recapitulation and Conclusion." In The Origin of Species. 1st ed. 1859. ISBN: 9780451529060. (PDF) [PD] "Design and Disorder: The Origin of Species." Pp. 91-114. SuggestedBowler, Peter. "The Idea of Evolution: Its Scope and Limitations." Evolution: The History of An Idea. University of California Press, 1989, pp. 1-23. ISBN: 9780520063860. [Preview with Google Books] |
9 | Ecology and environment |
RequiredOreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. "Challenging Knowledge: How Climate Change Science Became a Victim of the Cold War." In Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Edited by Robert Proctor, and Londa L. Schiebinger. Stanford University Press, 2008, pp. 55-89. ISBN: 9780804756525. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedForbes, Stephen A. "The Lake as Microcosm" [1887]. In Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries. Edited by Leslie A. Real, and James H. Brown. University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 17-27. ISBN: 9780226705941. Kingsland, Sharon. "Prologue: The Entangled Bank." Modeling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology. University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 9-24. ISBN: 9780226437286. [Preview with Google Books] Worster, Donald. "Words on a Map." Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 191-220. ISBN: 9780521468343. [Preview with Google Books] Global warming politics in the news — descriptions of scientists organizing to take on their critics: Banerjee, Neela. "Climate Scientists Plan Campaign Against Global Warming Skeptics." Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2010. Freedman, Andrew. "Scientists Launch Climate Science Counterattacks." Washington Post, November 8, 2010. Revkin, Andrew C. "Scientists Join Forces in a Hostile Climate." New York Times, November 7, 2010. |
3. Motion | ||
10 | From "natural motions" to "laws of motion" |
RequiredAristotle. Book III, parts 1-3 in Physics. Translated by R. P. Hardie, and R. K. Gaye. (PDF) Newton, Isaac. Selections from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy [1687], in Newton Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries. Edited by I. Bernard Cohen, and Richard S. Westfall. W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, pp. 221-246. ISBN: 9780393959024. [PD] "The Mechanical Universe from Galileo to Newton." Pp. 15-38. SuggestedCohen, I. Bernard. "Newton's Concepts of Force and Mass, with Notes on the Laws of Motion." In The Cambridge Companion to Newton. Edited by I. Bernard Cohen, and George E. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 57-84. ISBN: 9780521656962. [Preview with Google Books] |
11 | Beer brewing, steam engines, and the fate of the cosmos |
RequiredJoule, James. "The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat." In Great Experiments in Physics [1959]. Edited by Morris H. Shamos. Dover Publications, 1987, pp. 166-183. ISBN: 9780486253466. [Preview with Google Books] Bowler, Peter J., and Iwan Rhys Morus. "The Conservation of Energy." Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey. University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 79-102. ISBN: 9780226068619. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedSmith, Crosbie. "Everything in the Material World is Progressive." The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 100-125. ISBN: 9780226764207. [Preview with Google Books] |
12 | Space, time, and spacetime |
RequiredEinstein, Albert. Introduction, sections 1.1 and 1.2 in "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies." [1905]. Translated by Arthur I. Miller. In Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: Emergence (1905) and Interpretation (1905-1911). Addison-Wesley, 1997, pp. 392-396. ISBN: 9780387948706. [Alternate translation, complete text] Eisenstaedt, Jean. "Light and the Structure of Space-Time." The Curious History of Relativity. Translated by Arturo Sangalli. Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 24-57. ISBN: 9780691118659. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedGalison, Peter. "Einstein's Clocks: The Place of Time." Critical Inquiry 26, no. 2 (2000): 355-389. [Excerpt] Galison, Peter, and David Kaiser. "Special Relativity Primer." 2nd ed. Unpublished manuscript, 2006. |
4. Body | ||
13 | Blood, guts and images |
RequiredVesalius, Andreas. "Preface to On the Fabric of the Human Body" [1543]. In Charles D. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-64. University of California Press, 1964, pp. 316-24. [also Alternate translation of Preface, from Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 25, no. 9 (1932): 1357-1366.] Porter, Roy. "The Body." In Blood and Guts: A Short History. W. W. Norton & Co., 2004, pp. 53-75. ISBN: 9780393325690. [Preview with Google Books] Hersovitch, Penny. "Rest in Plastic: Review of 'Body Worlds, The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies' by Gunther von Hagens." Science 299 (February 7, 2003): 828. Smith, Orla. "Anantomy: The Art of the Oldest Science." Science 299 (February 7, 2003): 829. SuggestedPark, Katharine. "The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy." In The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad, Rewriting Histories. Edited by J. J. Martin. Routledge, 2002, pp. 224-252. ISBN: 9780415260626. Vesalius, Andreas. Online facsimile edition of On the Fabric of the Human Body. US National Library of Medicine. |
14 | Cell theory |
RequiredHooke, Robert. "Of the Schematisme or Texture of Cork…" In Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies. BiblioBazaar, 2007. ISBN: 9781426486760. (PDF) Schwann, Theodor. Excerpts from Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants [1839]. London, UK: The Sydenham Society, 1847, pp. ix-xviii, 36-40, and skim 41-64. ISBN: 9781149465820. Hall, Thomas S. "'The Cell' through Schwann 1800-1840." Ideas of Life and Matter. Vol. II. Edited by T. S. Hall. University of Chicago Press, 1969, pp. 179-192. ISBN: 9780226313603. SuggestedWilliam, Coleman. "Form: Cell Theory." In Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century. 2nd ed. John Wiley and Sons, 1978, pp. 16-35. ISBN: 9780521292931. [Preview with Google Books] Hooke, Robert. Online facsimile edition of Micrographia. US National Library of Medicine. |
15 | Physiology and experiment |
RequiredBernard, Claude. "Experimental Reasoning: Observation and Experiment," and "Experimental Considerations Common to Living Things and Inorganic Bodies." In An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine [1865]. Translated by Henry Copley Greene. Dover Publications, 1957, pp. 5-10 and 59-87. ISBN: 9780486204000. [Preview with Google Books] Marey, Etienne-Jules. "The Graphic Method in the Experimental Sciences." British Medical Journal 1, no. 783 (January 1, 1876): 1-3. (PDF) Mendelsohn, Everett. "Physical Models and Physiological Concepts: Explanation in 19th Century Biology." British Journal for the History of Science 2 (1965): 201-219. SuggestedHomes, F. Larry. "The Old Martyr of Science: The Frog in Experimental Physiology." Journal of the History of Biology 26, no. 2 (1993): 311-328. |
16 | Models of inheritance and genetics |
RequiredWatson, James, and Francis Crick. "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid." Nature 171 (1953): 737–739. (PDF) Frankin, Rosalind, and R. G. Gosling. "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate." Nature 171 (1953): 740–741. (PDF) Bowler, Peter J., and Iwan Rhys Morus. "Genetics." In Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey. University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 189-212. ISBN: 9780226068619. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedChadarevian, Soraya de. "Portrait of a Discovery: Watson, Crick and the Double Helix." Isis 94 (2003): 90-105. |
5. Heavens | ||
17 | To save the phenomena |
RequiredPtolemy. Excerpts (Book I: 1-10 and Book III: 3) from The Almagest. Translated by R. C. Taliaferro. In Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 16. Edited by Mortimer Adler, and Robert M. Hutchins. Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1994, pp. 5-14 and 86-93. ISBN: 9780852295311. Nasir al-din al-Tusi. Memoir on Astronomy. Vol. 1. Translated by F. J. Ragep. Springer, 1993, pp. 194-204, 212-214, and 222 (even-numbered pages only). ISBN: 9780387940519. [DL] "Early Greek Astronomy," "Cosmological Developments," and "Hellenistic Planetary Astronomy." Pp. 85-105. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedRagep, F. Jamil. "Copernicus and His Islamic Predecessors: Some Historical Remarks." History of Science 45 (2007): 65-81. |
18 | Copernicus: Round and round we go |
RequiredCopernicus, Nicolas. Introductions and prefaces, Book I, chapters 1-4 and 10, and Book V, chapter 5 from On the Revolutions of the Heavens [1543]. In Nicholas Copernicus Complete Works. Vol. 2. Translated by Edward Rosen, edited by Jerzy Dobrzycki. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978, pp. xv-xvii, 3-11, 18-22, and 244-247. ISBN: 9780801820397. Kepler, Johannes. "Preface." In Mysterium Cosmographicum [1596]. Translated by A. M. Duncan. Arabis, 1981, pp. 62-73. ISBN: 9780913870648. Lerner, Michel-Pierre, and Jean-Pierre Verdet. "Copernicus." In Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. Translated by James Evans, edited by Norriss Hetherington. Garland, 1993, pp. 147-173. ISBN: 9780815309345. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedGingerich, Owen. "The Great Copernicus Chase." In The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History. Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 69-81. ISBN: 9780521326889. |
19 | The Newtonian cosmos |
RequiredNewton, Isaac. "Four Letters to Richard Bentley." In Newton: Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries. Edited by I. Bernard Cohen, and Richard S. Westfall. W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, pp. 330-339. ISBN: 9780393959024. Kragh, Helge. "Newton's Inifinite Universe," and "Enlightenment Cosmologies." In Conceptions of Cosmos: From Myths to the Accelerating Universe, a History of Cosmology. Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 67-89. ISBN: 9780199209163. SuggestedHahn, Roger. "Laplace and the Mechanistic Universe." In God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science. Edited by David Lindberg, and Ronald Numbers. University of California Press, 1986, pp. 256-276. ISBN: 9780520056923. [Preview with Google Books] |
20 | Einstein, gravity, and politics |
RequiredEinstein, Albert. "What is the Theory of Relativity?" [Written at the request of The London Times, published November 28, 1919]. In Einstein: Ideas and Opinions. Random House, 1995. ISBN: 9780517884409. (PDF) SuggestedGraham, Loren. "Do Mathematical Equations Display Social Attributes?" Mathematical Intelligencer 22 (2000): 31-36. Kaiser, David. "General Relativity Primer: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Curved Spacetime." 2nd ed., unpublished manuscript, 2006. |
6. Mind | ||
21 | Mind-body |
RequiredDescartes, René. Meditations I & II in "Meditations on First Philosophy." In Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. I. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 76-86. ISBN: 9780521358125. [Preview with Google Books] [Alternate translation by John Veitch (1901)] Offray de La Mettrie, Julien. Chapters II – VI in "Natural History of the Soul" [1745]. In Man A Machine. Translated by Gertrude C. Bussey, and M. W. Calkins. Open Court Publishing, 1912, pp. 153-161. ISBN: 9781151057761. [Preview with Google Books] [Download for mobile devices] SuggestedCottingham, John. "The Cartesian Method." Descartes. Wiley-Blackwell, 1991, pp. 22-46. ISBN: 9780631150466. [Preview with Google Books] |
22 | Madness |
RequiredFreud, Sigmund. Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Edited by James Strachey. W.W. Norton & Co., 1990, pp. 5-62. ISBN: 9780393008470. Metzl, Jonathan M. "Voyeur Nation? Changing Definitions of Voyeurism, 1950-2004." Harvard Review of Psychiatry 12 (2004): 127-131. SuggestedPorter, Roy. "The Century of Psychoanalysis." Chapter 2 in Madness: A Short History. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780192802668. |
23 | Brains in the lab: Experimental psychology |
RequiredMünsterberg, Hugo. "The New Psychology and Harvard's Equipment for Teaching It." Harvard Graduate Magazine 1, no. 2 (1893): 201-209. ———. "Psychological Explanation." Part I, chapter III in Psychology: General and Applied. D. Appleton and Company, 1914, pp. 21-43. [Preview with Google Books] [Download for mobile devices] SuggestedDanziger, Kurt. "Historical Roots of The Psychological Laboratory." Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research. University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 17-33. ISBN: 9780521467858. [Preview with Google Books] Nichols, Herbert. "The Psychological Laboratory at Harvard." McClure's Magazine, 1893, 399-409. |
24 | Man-machine |
RequiredMazlish, Bruce. "The Man-Machine and Artificial Intelligence." In Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds. Edited by Stefano Franchi, and Guven Guzeldere. MIT Press, 2005, pp. 175-201. ISBN: 9780262562065. [Preview with Google Books] SuggestedTuring, A. M. "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Mind 59 (1950): 433-460. |
25 | Conclusion |