Gowan Dawson, Bernard Lightman, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham (eds.): Scientific Periodicals in Nineteenth-
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Gowan Dawson, Bernard Lightman, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham (eds.): Scientific Periodicals in Nineteenth‑Century Britain University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 2019, 424 pp., Illustrated, $65.00, Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-226-67651-7 Daniel Ucko1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
The 19th Century saw an explosive growth in scientific periodicals in Britain. Some of these were specialized and very short-lived, for example London Mechanics’ Register (1824–28), Geologist (1842–43), or Entomological Magazine (1832–38). Brevity of lifespan was a sad fact even for periodicals with wider scope ambitions, such as Thomas Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy (1813–26) and William Thomas Brande’s Journal of Science and the Arts (1816–30). Some periodicals founded in the 19th Century are still with us today, such as the Lancet (1823–), Nature (1869–) or Philosophical Magazine (1798–) (the latter of which fits into the long 19th Century). It is difficult to estimate exactly how many periodicals were born (if only briefly) in the 19th Century, partially due to debates over definitions of what exactly counts as a periodical. What is known is that they multiplied in number and increased in rigor from the beginning to the end of the 19th Century. Economic factors such as the mechanization of paper production, printing, and binding, created a fertile environment for this astonishing growth of scientific periodicals. The role of periodicals during this time differs significantly from the way in which scientific periodicals are viewed currently. The modern conception of periodicals, particularly those who remain today, is as vehicles of scientific knowledge, but as this edited volume reveals, it is more useful to think of these periodicals in terms of their role in forming and developing scientific communities. An additional realization brought forward by this volume is arrived at by considering the target audience for these periodicals. Readers were often amateur practitioners of various scientific disciplines, and not mere passive readers. Scientific periodicals thus played a large part in
* Daniel Ucko [email protected] 1
American Physical Society, Ridge, NY, USA
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creating communities of scientific practice, communities that themselves shaped scientific periodicals to meet community needs. Scientific communities had grown frustrated with the exclusivity of the Transactions-style journals that were the product of learned societies such as the Royal Society of London, who published infrequently, sometimes quarterly or biannually, and whose enormous quarto volumes were expensive and inaccessible. Into this gap stepped entrepreneurs of scientific publishing with their periodicals, and this volume contains many fascinating portraits of the main players of this time, many of whom pop up when least expected in a wide variety of ventures. The breadth of scientific periodicals that sprung up was a challenge to existing scien
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