Edited by Ronald E. Doel & Thomas Söderqvist

     

::

 

Reviews ¦ Table of Contents ¦ Content for Instructors ¦ Book Excerpts ¦ The Editors ¦ The Contributors ¦ Downloads ¦ Sneak Previews


large product photo

download larger version of cover [large file]

   

What are the new challenges facing those who chronicle the history of recent science, medicine and technology? What makes their task distinct from what historians faced in earlier times?

Writing Recent Science offers a rare and engaging look at writing contemporary history, when historical records are more likely preserved on fragile computer hard-drives rather than in filing cabinets. Have historians failed to consider what oral and photographic evidence can reveal? Are historians fixated on "East-West" scientific transactions, ignoring the profound explosion of "North-South" relations? Are science journalists, seduced by Carl Sagan, ignoring the somber lessons of Thomas Kuhn?

Writing Recent Science features original contributions by sixteen distinguished writers and historians who face these challenges. It includes a work of historical fiction and the fascinating story of how a review criticizing a contract history of English medicine was nearly barred from publication, a case that reverberated all the way to the British Cabinet Office. It raises important questions: how does secrecy affect modern science? How have politicians inappropriately used history to justify contemporary policy for victims of eugenics practice? Should biography now confront the ethical dimensions of scientists' lives?

This book is a superb read for those fascinated by the role of science, medicine and technology in contemporary society.

Published September 2006. ISBN 0415391423 paperback

Buy the book now. [Available in hardback and paperback editions -- correct price for paperback is $43 . Both hardback and paperback are currently available.]

   
 version 1.3 14 March 2007