Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and Expertise

ISBN-13: 9781412810814 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 304 str.

Robert Kargon

Opis

The evolution of an urban scientific community under the pressures of conceptual and social change is the main focus of this book. Manchester was Victorian Britain's leading industrial city. In order to describe and analyze the transformation of science in the eighteenth century, Robert Kargon closely examines Manchester through successive stages. In so doing, he traces the evolution of science from an activity pursued by gentlemen-amateurs to a highly specialized profession.At the end of this process, the author shows, a major trans formation in our understanding of the nature of science can be discerned: scientific knowledge, it was realized, could be produced. Science was no longer regarded primarily as the di vine design rendered into laws of nature, but rather as a method, or instrument, to be applied to novel areas of human endeavor. Science had become on the one hand enterprise, and on the other expertise. In each chapter, Kargon relates the changing conception of science and its social role to the birth, growth, and character of the city's scientific institutions.The contours of the scientific community-its interests, concerns, and approaches to what it came to see as critical problem---were shaped by its civic environment. Its character, in turn, responded to the development of the disciplines represented within it. As the sciences increased in specialization and complexity during the course of the nineteenth century, they placed new stress upon the community, affecting the composition of its membership and the nature of its leading institutions. The scientific frontier reacted upon Manchester just as Manchester acted upon it. Now available in paperback, this classic work in history includes a new introduction by the author.

Spis treści

Contents
Introduction to the Transaction Edition
Preface
1. The Structure of Science in Manchester in 1840
The Revolutionary City and the Scientific Community
The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and the Manchester Scientific-Cultural Network
The Manchester Natural History Society
The Royal Manchester Institution: Niha1 Pulchrum Nisi Utile
The Manchester Mechanics' Institution
The Manchester Geological Society
The Structure of Manchester Science in 1840
2. The Emergence of the Devotee: The Changing Face of Amateur Science
Science as a "Calling"
William Sturgeon and the Royal Victoria Gallery
The Changing of the Guard: The Evolution of the Literary and Philosophical Society
James Joule as Devotee
Edward Binney: Career Profile
John Leigh: The Surgeon as Devotee
Joseph Baxendell, F.R.S.
Devotee Science: A Social Analysis
3. The Coming of the Civic Scientists
The New Professionals
Liebig and the British Chemists
Science and Public Health
4. The Science of Civic Virtue: Chemistry, Health, and Industry
The Environmentalist Attack
Sanitary Chemistry: Career Profile of Robert Angus Smith
Chemistry and Industry
Crace-Calvert and Industrial Chemistry
The Impact of the Civic Scientists
5. Academic Science: Owens College
Born and Reborn
The Move for Higher Education in Manchester
The Opening of the Owens College
A Serious Decline
A New Era
Building a Chemical School
Engineering and the Coming of Reynolds
Owens College Extended
Owens College, Industrial Chemistry, and the German Threat
Manchester and the Scientific Industry Question
6. University Science: Arthur Schuster and the Organization of Physics in Manchester
Building a Northern University
The Articulation of Physics at the Victoria University
Creating the New Physical Laboratory
Preparation for the Future
Notes
Bibliographical Note
Index

O autorze

William T. Golden