This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction  
2 Institutions and Epistemology in Early Modern Europe Buy at Amazon Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996 [1962]. ISBN: 9780226458083.

Buy at Amazon Bowler, Peter J., and Iwan Rhys Morus. Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780226068619.

Buy at Amazon Shapin, Steven, and Simon Shaffer. Leviathan and the Air Pump: Boyle, Hobbes, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780691083933.

Buy at Amazon Biagioli, Mario. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780226045597.

Buy at Amazon Daston, Lorraine, and Katherine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. New York, NY: Zone Books, 1998. ISBN: 9780942299908.
3 Natural History Buy at Amazon Richards, Robert J. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226712109.

Buy at Amazon Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780691026060. Or,

Buy at Amazon ———. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780679429326.

Buy at Amazon Stepan, Nancy Leys. Picturing Tropical Nature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780801438813.
4 Victorian Science Buy at Amazon Secord, James. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780226744100.

Buy at Amazon Smith, Crosbie. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780226764214.

Buy at Amazon Winter, Alison. Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226902197.
5 Science and Empire Buy at Amazon Drayton, Richard. Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780300059762.

Buy at Amazon Burnett, D. Graham. Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780226081205.

Buy at Amazon Sadowsky, Jonathan. Imperial Bedlam: Institutions of Madness in Colonial Southwest Nigeria. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780520216174.
6 Biomedical Research Buy at Amazon Kohler, Robert. Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780226450636.

Buy at Amazon Pressman, Jack D. Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780521353717.

Buy at Amazon Epstein, Steven. Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780520214453.
7 Modern Physics Buy at Amazon Galison, Peter. Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. ISBN: 9780393020014.

Buy at Amazon Schweber, S. S. In the Shadow of the Bomb: Bethe, Oppenheimer, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780691049892.

Buy at Amazon Kaiser, David. Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780226422671.
8 Presentations of Student Papers