Synopses & Reviews
The ideas of Charles Darwin and his fellow Victorian scientists have had an abiding effect on the modern world. But at the time
The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the British public looked not to practicing scientists but to a growing group of professional writers and journalists to interpret the larger meaning of scientific theories in terms they could understand and in ways they could appreciate.
Victorian Popularizers of Science focuses on this important group of men and women who wrote about science for a general audience in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Bernard Lightman examines more than thirty of the most prolific, influential, and interesting popularizers of the day, investigating the dramatic lecturing techniques, vivid illustrations, and accessible literary styles they used to communicate with their audience. By focusing on a forgotten coterie of science writers, their publishers, and their public, Lightman offers new insights into the role of women in scientific inquiry, the market for scientific knowledge, tensions between religion and science, and the complexities of scientific authority in nineteenth-century Britain.
Synopsis
Bernard Lightman is professor of humanities at York University, Toronto, editor of the journal Isis, editor of Victorian Science in Context, and coeditor of Science in the Marketplace, all published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Historians, popularizers, and the Victorian scene -- Anglican theologies of nature in a post-Darwinian era -- Redefining the maternal tradition -- The showmen of science : wood, pepper, and visual spectacle -- The evolution of the evolutionary epic -- The science periodical : Proctor and the conduct of "knowledge" -- Practitioners enter the field : Huxley and Ball as popularizers -- Science writing on New Grub Street -- Conclusion: Remapping the terrain.