Publishers and observers of the science publishing scene comment in essay form on key developments throughout the 20th century. The scale of the global research effort and its industrial organization have resulted in substantial increases in the published volume, as well as new techniques for its handling.

Making "Nature" is the first book to chronicle the foundation and development of Nature, one of the world's most influential scientific institutions. Now nearing its hundred and fiftieth year of publication, Nature is the international benchmark for scientific publication. Its contributors include Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, and Stephen Hawking, and it has published many of the most important discoveries in the history of science, including articles on the structure of DNA, the discovery of the neutron, the first cloning of a mammal, and the human genome. But how did Nature become such an essential institution? In Making "Nature," Melinda Baldwin charts the rich history of this extraordinary publication from its foundation in 1869 to current debates about online publishing and open access. This pioneering study not only tells Nature's story but also sheds light on much larger questions about the history of science publishing, changes in scientific communication, and shifting notions of "scientific community." Nature, as Baldwin demonstrates, helped define what science is and what it means to be a scientist.

Not since the printing press has a media object been as celebrated for its role in the advancement of knowledge as the scientific journal. From open communication to peer review, the scientific journal has long been central both to the identity of academic scientists and to the public legitimacy of scientific knowledge. But that was not always the case. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, academies and societies dominated elite study of the natural world. Journals were a relatively marginal feature of this world, and sometimes even an object of outright suspicion. The Scientific Journal tells the story of how that changed. Alex Csiszar takes readers deep into nineteenth-century London and Paris, where savants struggled to reshape scientific life in the light of rapidly changing political mores and the growing importance of the press in public life. The scientific journal did not arise as a natural solution to the problem of communicating scientific discoveries. Rather, as Csiszar shows, its dominance was a hard-won compromise born of political exigencies, shifting epistemic values, intellectual property debates, and the demands of commerce. Many of the tensions and problems that plague scholarly publishing today are rooted in these tangled beginnings. As we seek to make sense of our own moment of intense experimentation in publishing platforms, peer review, and information curation, Csiszar argues powerfully that a better understanding of the journal’s past will be crucial to imagining future forms for the expression and organization of knowledge.

Threatened by the proliferation of cheap, mass-produced publications, the Religious Tract Society issued a series of publications on popular science during the 1840s. The books were intended to counter the developing notion that science and faith were mutually exclusive, and the Society's authors employed a full repertoire of evangelical techniques—low prices, simple language, carefully structured narratives—to convert their readers. The application of such techniques to popular science resulted in one of the most widely available sources of information on the sciences in the Victorian era. A fascinating study of the tenuous relationship between science and religion in evangelical publishing, Science and Salvation examines questions of practice and faith from a fresh perspective. Rather than highlighting works by expert men of science, Aileen Fyfe instead considers a group of relatively undistinguished authors who used thinly veiled Christian rhetoric to educate first, but to convert as well. This important volume is destined to become essential reading for historians of science, religion, and publishing alike.

“An outstanding scientific autobiography... I remain impressed by its thoughtfulness and charm.” — Steve K. Lamoreaux, American Journal of Physics “[A] rich autobiography and history-of-atomic-physics... One is impressed by Casimir’s memory for detail and zeal to find corroboration for the stories he tells. And they are splendid tales: Gamow’s playful pranks in Copenhagen: conversations with Lev Landau, ardent revolutionary but no Marxist; the tragedy of Ehrenfest, who killed himself after shooting his hopelessly retarded son... A charming, idiosyncratic, and meaningful account of events and personalities that changed physics.” — Kirkus “I myself read [this book] with fascination, meeting old friends such as Gamow, Landau, Kramers, and learning much more about them... Also in the book are character sketches of those who made physics in the Netherlands such as Lorentz, Kamerlingh Onnes and Ehrenfest, the latter remembered with the greatest affection by the author.” — Sir Nevill Mott, Contemporary Physics “The book... contains a valuable, entertaining and insightful collection of vignettes of many of the physicists Casimir has associated with[,]... Lorentz, Ehrenfest, Bohr, Pauli, with whom he studied; Goudsmit, Uhlenbeck, Landau, Gamov, members of his own generation; Kramers, Gorter, de Haas, colleagues in Dutch academic circles; Holst and Loupart, colleagues at the Philips Laboratories. Haphazard Reality also offers valuable insights into Dutch middle class culture and a rewarding overview of Dutch educational and scientific establishments... Casimir is a master at deftly and sensitively conveying the psychological ambiance of his surroundings. His description of the brilliant young theoretical physicists around Bohr in the early thirties conveys not only the style of doing physics but also delineates the issues addressed by outlining the content of their researches.” — S. S. Schweber, 4S Review “Engaging reminiscences by an important Dutch physicist of conversations with the major contributors to 20th-century physics. An overly modest, but otherwise balanced account of his own experiences and contributions from his early years at Leiden to his directorship of the Philips Laboratory.” — The Antioch Review “Haphazard Reality paints a vivid and insightful picture of the development of modern physics.” — Steve K. Lamoreaux, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society

Many of the scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century were first reported in the journal Nature. A Century of Nature brings together in one volume Nature's greatest hits—reproductions of seminal contributions that changed science and the world, accompanied by essays written by leading scientists (including four Nobel laureates) that provide historical context for each article, explain its insights in graceful, accessible prose, and celebrate the serendipity of discovery and the rewards of searching for needles in haystacks.

A Nobel Prize–winning cancer biologist, leader of major scientific institutions, and scientific adviser to President Obama reflects on his remarkable career. A PhD candidate in English literature at Harvard University, Harold Varmus discovered he was drawn instead to medicine and eventually found himself at the forefront of cancer research at the University of California, San Francisco. In this “timely memoir of a remarkable career” (American Scientist), Varmus considers a life’s work that thus far includes not only the groundbreaking research that won him a Nobel Prize but also six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health; his current position as the president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; and his important, continuing work as scientific adviser to President Obama. From this truly unique perspective, Varmus shares his experiences from the trenches of politicized battlegrounds ranging from budget fights to stem cell research, global health to science publishing.