Synopses & Reviews
Vomiting. Diarrhea. Dehydration. Death. Confusion. In 1832, the arrival of cholera in the United States created widespread panic throughout the country. For the rest of the century, epidemics swept through American cities and towns like wildfire, killing thousands. Physicians of all stripes offered conflicting answers to the cholera puzzle, ineffectively responding with opiates, bleeding, quarantines, and all manner of remedies, before the identity of the dreaded infection was consolidated under the germ theory of disease some sixty years later.
These cholera outbreaks raised fundamental questions about medical knowledge and its legitimacy, giving fuel to alternative medical sects that used the confusion of the epidemic to challenge both medical orthodoxy and the authority of the still-new American Medical Association. In Knowledge in the Time of Cholera, Owen Whooley tells us the story of those dark days, centering his narrative on rivalries between medical and homeopathic practitioners and bringing to life the battle to control public understanding of disease, professional power, and democratic governance in nineteenth-century America.
Review
and#8220;This is a valuable and interesting book that willand#160;be of interest to scholars from many fields. Itand#160;makes a contribution to cholera studies but, moreand#160;importantly, it adds new dimensions to the sociologicaland#160;literature on medical professionalisation.and#160;Furthermore, Whooleyand#8217;s conceptualisation of theand#160;epistemic contest, elaborated in his concludingand#160;chapter, should prove useful in analysing manyand#160;intellectual debates. I expect we will see it utilisedand#160;repeatedly by future scholars.and#8221;
Review
"Knowledge in the Time of Cholera is a provocative book, sweeping in scope and valuable for bringing the interpretive insights of the sociology of knowledge to bear on nineteenth-century medicine."
Review
andldquo;There are books on the history of cholera, on the laboratory and scientific networks, and on epistemology and science, but none like this one. Owen Whooley has produced a truly original book, an important intervention in science studies, history of medicine, and nineteenth-century American society and culture.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Owen Whooley has gone after big game! Knowledge in the Time of Cholera is bold and assertive, forcing a reconsideration of the historical and sociological relationships between medicine and science, and providing an impressive analysis of the deeply intertwined development of these two professions.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;Whooley provides a sustained attack on traditional narratives of the straight-line upward trajectory of scientific discovery and professionalization of physicians. . . . [This] book is for those who relish academic combat and can delve into notions of epistemology wielded as weapons of control.and#8221;
Synopsis
Why is science so credible? Usual answers center on scientists' objective methods or their powerful instruments. In his new book, Thomas Gieryn argues that a better explanation for the cultural authority of science lies downstream, when scientific claims leave laboratories and enter courtrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms. On such occasions, we use "maps" to decide who to believeand#8212;cultural maps demarcating "science" from pseudoscience, ideology, faith, or nonsense.
Gieryn looks at episodes of boundary-work: Was phrenology good science? How about cold fusion? Is social science really scientific? Is organic farming? After centuries of disputes like these, Gieryn finds no stable criteria that absolutely distinguish science from non-science. Science remains a pliable cultural space, flexibly reshaped to claim credibility for some beliefs while denying it to others. In a timely epilogue, Gieryn finds this same controversy at the heart of the raging "science wars."
About the Author
Thomas F. Gieryn is professor of sociology at Indiana University. He is the editor of three books, most recently of
Theories of Science in Society.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Contesting Credibility Cartographically
1. John Tyndall's Double Boundary-Work: Science, Religion, and Mechanics in Victorian England
2. The U.S. Congress Demarcates Natural Science and Social Science (Twice)
3. May the Best Science Win: Competition for the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, 1836
4. The (Cold) Fusion of Science, Mass Media, and Politics
5. Hybridizing Credibilities: Albert and Gabrielle Howard Compost Organic Waste, Science, and the Rest of Society
Epilogue: Home to Roost: "Science Wars" as Boundary-Work
Bibliography of Secondary Works
Index