SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY: SUBJECT GUIDE: Books & more

In Science in World History, James Trefil presents a comprehensive, thematic survey of the history of science from its roots in different cultures around the world through to the present day. He explores crucial milestones in scientific development and at the same time examines the enormous social and intellectual changes they initiated. Opening with a discussion of the key elements of modern scientific enterprise, the book goes on to explore the earliest scientific activities, moving through Greece and Alexandria, science in the Muslim world, and then on to Isaac Newton, atomic theory and the major developments of the nineteenth century.

Exploring research domains involved with astronomy and cosmology, this interdisciplinary volume investigates and explains how the field has affected human life and perceptions of the universe. Chapters cover the historical background of the field, past and current research, the science behind astronomy, and open question raised by modern astronomical and cosmological research.

Following the Second World War, both the specter of nuclear devastation and the dazzling prospect of using nuclear fission for energy helped to shape the hopes and fears of people around the world. In this groundbreaking volume, an international group of scholars explores how these formidable technologies were represented to the ôcommon peopleö in countries as different as the United States, the Soviet Union, India, and Japan. Drawing on illustrated magazines and a rich selection of other popular media, they trace the transnational flows, convergences, and divergences of the nuclear narratives and images that played upon the public imagination through the first two postwar decades.

Matter and form have been fundamental principles in natural science since Greek Antiquity and their apparent rejection during the seventeenth century typically has been described as a precursor to the emergence of modern science. This volume reconsiders the fate of these principles and the complex history of their reception.

Shows how the key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. This title traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia