A Tale of Two Textbooks: Experiments in Genre
Name
Kaiser_A Tale of.pdf
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151.17 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
12799a19c89c036117205edc17d83ca5
Author(s)
Kaiser, David I.
Date Issued
March 2012
Journal
Isis
Publisher
University of Chicago Press/History of Science Society
Citation
Kaiser, David. “A Tale of Two Textbooks: Experiments in Genre.” Isis 103, no. 1 (March 2012): 126-138.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Though the notion of a scientific textbook has been around for almost three centuries, the category has hardly been stable. The plasticity of the textbook genre may be illustrated by recent variations as well as long-term trends. In this brief essay I examine two idiosyncratic but highly successful physics books, each published in the mid 1970s, whose production, marketing, and adoption reveal some of the slippage between such categories as textbook, scholarly monograph, and popular best seller.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1086/664983
