Explore the vast range of titles available.

From the eighteenth century until as recently as World War II, the natural scientist was depicted as a kind of moral superhero: objective, modest, ascetic, and selflessly dedicated to the betterment of humanity. What accounts for the widespread diffusion of this myth?   In Science and Immortality, Charles B. Paul provides a partial explanation. The modern ideology of the scientist as disinterested seeker after truth arose partly through the transformation of an ancient literary form--the commemoration of heroes. In 1699 Bernard de Fontenelle, as Secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, inaugurated the tradition of the éloge, or eulogy, in honor of members of the Academy. The moral qualities that had once been attributed to the idealized Stoic philosopher were transferred in the eulogies to the \"natural philosopher,\" or scientist. The over two hundred éloges composed between 1699 and 1791 by Fontenelle and his successors--Mairan, Fouchy, and Condorcet--served as a powerful device for the popularization of science.   It was the intention of the secretaries, though, not only to exhibit the natural scientist as a modern-day hero but also to present a truthful record of scientific activity in France. Paul examines the éloges both as a literary form that used rhetorical and stylistic devises to reconcile these two conflicting goals and as a collective biography of a new breed of savants--one that already contained the seed of the conflict between self-image and reality embedded in the modern scientific enterprise. A unique history of science in eighteenth-century France, Science and Immortality illuminates the record in the éloges of the professionalization of some sciences and the maturation of others, the recognition of their utility to society and the state, and the widening trust in science as the remedy to economic restriction and political absolutism. Paul's thorough catalog of the éloges, extensive bibliography, and translations of representative éloges make this book an essential source for scholars in the field. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.

This essay considers the politics and patronage of geography in early-modern France. It examines how the Paris Academy of Sciences, widely acknowledged as the 18th century's pre-eminent scientific society, came to recognise geography as an independent science in 1730, a century before the establishment of the first geographical societies. Although the Academy was centrally concerned with cartography from its inception in 1666, it initially afforded no official status to geography, which was viewed either as a specialised form of historical inquiry or as a minor component within the hegemonic science of astronomy. The rise of Newtonian mathematics and the associated controversy about the shape of the earth challenged the Academy's epistemological foundations and prompted a debate about the educational and political significance of geography as a scientific practice. The death in 1726 of Guillaume Delisle, a prominent Academy astronomer-cartographer and a popular geography tutor to the young Louis XV, led to a spirited campaign to elect Philippe Buache, Delisle's protégé, to a new Academy position as a geographer rather than an astronomer. The campaign emphasised the social and political utility of geography, though the Academy's decision to recognise this new and distinctively modern science was ultimately facilitated by traditional networks of patronage within the French Royal Court.

In 1733, as part of a programme to publish its early works in a uniform format, the Paris Academy of Sciences reprinted Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des animaux (Histoire des animaux), last published in 1676, a work of both natural history and mechanistic anatomy. However, unlike the other works in this enterprise, Histoire des animaux was extensively edited and updated. In 1749 Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon published the first volume of Histoire naturelle. Its volumes on quadrupeds, written with Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, held significant similarities to Histoire des animaux. The relationship between these works has not hitherto been examined. Buffon's early ideas on species, in particular, resemble the emphasis on particulars of Histoire des animaux.

Prior to 1735, South America was largely terra incognita to many Europeans. But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a joint French and Spanish mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the Earth at the Equator—an expedition that would put South America on the map and in the minds of Europeans for centuries to come. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission’s participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a “sacred fire” passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to curious observers in South America. By looking at the social and material traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge in reverse—from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, from the Andes to the Amazon River, the book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, including Charles-Marie de La Condamine and others, as well as maps and specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.

Existing literature on mineral springs in early modern France suggests that composition played a minor role in the evaluation of those springs. In fact it played a major role from at least the beginning of the seventeenth century. Composition was studied by a wide range of actors, from physicians in the provinces to chemists at the Paris Academy of Science, with a view to establishing the efficacy of particular springs against particular diseases. Iatrochemistry played a complex role in these evaluations. Followers of Paracelsus and van Helmont were among the first to perform chemical analyses on mineral waters. But there were physicians who studied composition without chemistry, or who used chemistry while opposing iatrochemistry. Conversely, there were iatrochemists who used chemistry to study mineral waters but not to evaluate them, and there were many chemists who gave at least as much weight to clinical experience as they did to composition.

In 1716, Jean Marius submitted several projects for his clavecins à maillet to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Short descriptions and plates of four of Marius's actions were published in 1735, after his death. Even though Marius is well known as the first French pianomaker, a large part of his handwritten reports and descriptions on his clavecins à maillet remain unpublished. These descriptions give a number of details about the first piano actions devised in France some 15 years after Cristofori's invention of his arpicimbablo che fa il piano e il forte in about 1700. These documents, which are published for the first time in this article, were not quoted in the 1735 printed version that is usually mentioned in all the main surveys of the history of the early pianoforte. Furthermore, the article describes Andries Veltman's 1759 combined harpsichord-piano which was one of the very first hammer-action keyboard instruments made in France after Marius's experiments.

While previous studies have contrasted the relative optimism of middle-class social scientists before 1848 with a later period of concern for national decline and racial degeneration, Staum demonstrates that the earlier learned societies were also fearful of turmoil at home and interested in adventure abroad. Both geographers and ethnologists created concepts of fundamental \"racial\" inequality that prefigured the imperialist \"associationist\" discourse of the Third Republic, believing that European tutelage would guide \"civilizable\" peoples, and providing an open invitation to dominate and exploit the \"uncivilizable.\"

The Institut Pasteur may not exactly be reinventing itself, but it obviously has had to change its modus vivendi radically in the 128 years since it was inaugurated. Not that founder Louis Pasteur would probably be displeased with the direction it is taking. \"Adopt a critical mind\", he said in his inaugural speech on Nov 14, 1888. \"By itself, it can neither encourage ideas nor stimulate anything great. But without it, everything is useless. It always has the last word.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the French dominated the world of science. And although science and politics had little to do with each other directly, there were increasingly frequent intersections. This is a study of those transactions between science and state, knowledge and power--on the eve of the French Revolution. Charles Gillispie explores how the links between science and polity in France were related to governmental reform, modernization of the economy, and professionalization of science and engineering.

The institute has joined with the Chinese Center For Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) to convert talking into tangible action. In consultation with the governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the countries that have been devastated by Ebola - our collaboration will invest in public health, education and research in the region to address the urgent needs highlighted by the Ebola epidemic.