Newton and Newtoniana, 1672-1975. A Bibliography by Peter Wallis; Ruth WallisReview by: Richard S. WestfallIsis, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Dec., 1979), p. 623Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/230766 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 15:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Isis.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.121 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 15:06:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 70: 4: 254 (1979) 623

mapping North American colonies, calls at- tention to the problem of transatlantic car- tographic exchange; Coolie Verner discusses the commercial problems of John Seller, the overambitious cartographic entrepreneur; David Woodward provides the most succinct, systematic interpretation in print of English cartography's few strengths and greater weaknesses; and Norman Thrower, writing about Halley's considerable achievement, touches indirectly on each of the preceding topics. The book does not pretend to be encyclopedic; land surveying, military maps, and the mapping of Ireland are only men- tioned in passing. It is, however, the most complete overview available, at once a state- ment of what is known and an outline of topics and questions that remain to be stu- died.

JOSEF KONVITZ

History Department Michigan State University

East Lansing, Michigan 48824

Peter Wallis; Ruth Wallis. Newton and New- toniana, 1672-1975. A Bibliography. xxiv + 362 pp., indexes. Folkestone, England: Wm. Dawson and Sons, 1977. ?30.

As the Wallises point out, nearly a century has passed since G. J. Gray published Sir Isaac Newton, A Bibliography, a work which, in its second edition, listed 412 works by and about Newton. It is some measure of the growth both of the discipline of the history of science as a whole and of work on Newton in particular that this new bibliography con- tains, according to the authors' count which a hasty check supports, ten times as many en- tries.

To be sure, they have cast their net very wide in the definition of Newtoniana. Their point was not to see how many titles they could gather, however, but to compile as useful a bibliography as possible. Whatever the number of entries, they have surely suc- ceeded. Beyond the standard material that appears in bibliographical listings, they have included information about special features such as prefaces, dedications, frontispieces, and the like, the location of reviews, and a number of libraries around the world where copies of works can be found. Three indexes, one of authors, editors, translators, and re- viewers, another of the titles of anonymous works, and a third of publishers and book- sellers further add to the volume's usefulness.

If I were forced to find something to criti- cize, I might question their decision to base the bibliography directly on Gray's, following his organization, and expanding his system of serial numbers by decimals. Gray is hardly a classic and by no means sacrosanct, and it seems possible that a better organization could have been worked out. I do not care to pursue this line any further, however. The indexes go a long way to making up for this deficiency, if indeed it is such, and the bibli- ography will be too helpful to be smirched by carping objections of that order. Let me rather praise the authors' skill and their ex- traordinary dedication. And let me waste no further time writing about the bibliography when I could be using it.

RICHARD S. WESTFALL

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47401

* Nineteenth & Twentieth Centuries

Morris Berman. Social Change and Scientific Organization: The Royal Institution, 1799- 1844. xxv + 224 pp., illus., bibl., index. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978. $17.50.

The importance of Morris Berman's study of the early years of the Royal Institution is manifested by the extent to which, quite out- side the world of reviewing and official recog- nition, it has already generated great interest among social historians of science. Armed with a historical boldness that can break through the confines of institutional history and ask important questions, this study is a vital contribution to a debate that, for all the talk, has generated surprisingly few commit- ted and detailed works.

Berman studies the RI in dramatic relation to a decisive historical shift in the history of nineteenth-century Britain, namely the transi- tion from its domination by an entrenched landed class with an interest in developing forms of agricultural "improvement" (for ex- ample, in agricultural chemistry) to its domi- nation by a metropolitan-based, Utilitarian, professional elite, formed typically of doctors and lawyers. In a striking attempt to break open the vexed question of science as "ideol- ogy," Berman rounds off his study of the RI by linking this Utilitarian takeover with a

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.121 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 15:06:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions