The specialization thesis—the idea that nineteenth-century science fragmented into separate forms of knowledge that led to the creation of modern disciplines—has played an integral role in the way historians have described the changing disciplinary map of nineteenth-century British science. This volume critically reevaluates this dominant narrative in the historiography. While new disciplines did emerge during the nineteenth century, the intellectual landscape was far muddier, and in many cases new forms of specialist knowledge continued to cross boundaries while integrating ideas from other areas of study. Through a history of Victorian interdisciplinarity, this volume offers a more complicated and innovative analysis of discipline formation. Harnessing the techniques of cultural and intellectual history, studies of visual culture, Victorian studies, and literary studies, contributors break out of subject-based silos, exposing the tension between the rhetorical push for specialization and the actual practice of knowledge sharing across disciplines during the nineteenth century.

Richard Olson's magisterial two-volume work, Science Deified and Science Defied asks how, why, to what extent, and with what consequences scientific ideas have influenced Western culture. In Volume 2, Olson turns to Cartesianism and the extension of mathematical and mechanical philosophies that branched into every aspect of seventeenth-century thought.

This Concise Companion presents fresh perspectives on eighteenth-century literature. Contributes to current debates in the field on subjects such as the public sphere, travel and exploration, scientific rhetoric, gender and the book trade, and historical versus literary perceptions of life on London streets. Searches out connections between the remarkable number of new genres that appeared in the eighteenth century. Crosses conventional disciplinary lines. Demonstrates that philosophy, history, politics and social theory both influence and are influenced by literature.

Recounts the various styles of leadership shown by several prominent German chemists and biochemists during the period 1830 to 1914. Featured particularly are chemists Liebig, Baeyer and Emil Fischer and biochemists Hoppe-Seyler, Kuhne and Hofmeister. In a final chapter, Fruton considers the relevance of the conclusions drawn from the style of these 19th- and early 20th-centuy men to the styles of more recent research groups in the chemical and biochemical sciences. Special emphasis is placed on their influence on their scientific progenies in Germany, and in England, Russia, and the U.S. Attention is given to the individual contributions of the junior members of these scientific groups to the growth of knowledge within their disciplines.