Science for All
The Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain
Recent scholarship has revealed that pioneering Victorian scientists endeavored through voluminous writing to raise public interest in science and its implications. But it has generally been assumed that once science became a profession around the turn of the century, this new generation of scientists turned its collective back on public outreach. Science for All debunks this apocryphal notion.
Peter J. Bowler surveys the books, serial works, magazines, and newspapers published between 1900 and the outbreak of World War II to show that practicing scientists were very active in writing about their work for a general readership. Science for All argues that the social environment of early twentieth-century Britain created a substantial market for science books and magazines aimed at those who had benefited from better secondary education but could not access higher learning. Scientists found it easy and profitable to write for this audience, Bowler reveals, and because their work was seen as educational, they faced no hostility from their peers. But when admission to colleges and universities became more accessible in the 1960s, this market diminished and professional scientists began to lose interest in writing at the nonspecialist level.
Eagerly anticipated by scholars of scientific engagement throughout the ages, Science for All sheds light on our own era and the continuing tension between science and public understanding.
“Who should speak for science? In the early decades of the twentieth century, a host of popular books, newspaper columns, and radio broadcasts debated this question with increasing urgency. Based on a vast range of remarkable sources, both printed and archival, Peter Bowler’s characteristically clear survey opens a new historical frontier and puts our own dilemmas in communicating knowledge into a fresh perspective.”—James A. Secord, author of Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
“Peter Bowler has produced the substantial work on the early twentieth century so desperately needed by historians of the popularization of science, who have tended to concentrate on the nineteenth century. He argues that in this period British scientists continued to work in the Victorian tradition of communicating with the public established by T. H. Huxley, and that only after World War II did the situation change significantly. Breathtaking in its comprehensiveness, and based on rigorous research, Science for All lays out a synthetic overview of the important authors, audiences, and publishers between 1900 and 1950. In the process, Bowler has provided a detailed roadmap for all future work on the popularization of science in the twentieth century.”—Bernard Lightman, author of Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences
List of Illustrations
Preface
A Note about Money
Introduction: Scientists, Experts, and the Public
Part I : Topics and Themes in Popular Science
Rival Ideologies of Science
The Big Picture
Practical Knowledge for All
Part II : Publishers and Their Publications
Creating an Audience
Bestsellers on Big Issues
Publishers’ Series
Encyclopedias and Serial Publications
Popular Science Magazines
Science for the General Public
Part III : The Authors
Big Names
Scientists and Other Experts
Epilogue: The 1950s and After
Appendix: Biographical Register
Bibliography
Index
History: British History | General History | History of Ideas | History of Technology
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature
Physical Sciences: History and Philosophy of Physical Sciences
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