Charles Coulston Gillispie:Wissenschaft und Politik in Frankreich: Die revolutionären und napoleonischen Jahre von Charles
- gebunden oder broschiert ISBN: 9780691115412
The author is at his best when he is reporting colorful episodes, portraying a character, disentangling a plot or dissecting an institution.". --Jessica Riskin, Modern History. Science an… Mehr…
The author is at his best when he is reporting colorful episodes, portraying a character, disentangling a plot or dissecting an institution.". --Jessica Riskin, Modern History. Science and Polity in France. The Nile on eBay FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE Science and Polity in France by Charles Coulston Gillispie Examines how the revolutionary and Napoleonic context contributed to modernization both of politics and science. This work argues that in politics the central feature of this modernization was conversion of subjects of a monarchy into citizens of a republic in direct contact with a state enormously augmented in power. FORMATHardcover LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description From the 1770s through the 1820s the French scientific community predominated in the world to a degree that no other scientific establishment did in any period prior to the Second World War. In his classic Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime, Charles Gillispie analyzed the cultural, political, and technical factors that encouraged scientific productivity on the eve of the Revolution. In the present monumental and elegantly written sequel to that work, he examines how the revolutionary and Napoleonic context contributed to modernization both of politics and science. In politics, argues Gillispie, the central feature of this modernization was conversion of subjects of a monarchy into citizens of a republic in direct contact with a state enormously augmented in power. To the scientific community, attainment of professional status was what citizenship was to all Frenchmen in the republic proper, namely the license to self-governance and dignity within the respective contexts. Among the creations of the First French Republic were institutions providing the earliest higher education in science.From them emerged rigorously trained people who constituted the founding generation in the disciplines of mathematical physics, positivistic biology, and clinical medicine. That scientists were able to achieve their ends was owing to the expertise they provided the revolutionary and imperial authorities in education, medicine, warfare, empire building, and industrial technology. Notes A masterpiece of thorough research, this is a major work of scholarship by one of the great historians of our time and quite possibly the most distinguished of a distinguished generation of historians of science. It is thoroughly original and written with grace and clarity. The book ought to be fundamental not only for historians of science, but for anyone who wishes to appreciate the events and significance of the French Revolution. -- Theodore M. Porter, author of "Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age " A remarkable piece of work and a worthy sequel to Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime. Written in an elegant and punchy style, the book is sustained by a strong thesis that will interest a wide range of historians. It will also be seen, like the previous volume, as an important work of reference. Where else could we find such finely documented accounts of the last year of the Academie des Sciences, of the institutions and personalities of the revolutionary period, or of the introduction of the revolutionary calendar and the metric system? -- Robert Fox, author of "Science, Industry, and the Social Order in Post-Revolutionary France" Back Cover "A masterpiece of thorough research, this is a major work of scholarship by one of the great historians of our time and quite possibly the most distinguished of a distinguished generation of historians of science. It is thoroughly original and written with grace and clarity. The book ought to be fundamental not only for historians of science, but for anyone who wishes to appreciate the events and significance of the French Revolution." --Theodore M. Porter, author of Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age "A remarkable piece of work and a worthy sequel to Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime . Written in an elegant and punchy style, the book is sustained by a strong thesis that will interest a wide range of historians. It will also be seen, like the previous volume, as an important work of reference. Where else could we find such finely documented accounts of the last year of the Acadmie des Sciences, of the institutions and personalities of the revolutionary period, or of the introduction of the revolutionary calendar and the metric system?" --Robert Fox, author of Science, Industry, and the Social Order in Post-Revolutionary France Flap "A masterpiece of thorough research, this is a major work of scholarship by one of the great historians of our time and quite possibly the most distinguished of a distinguished generation of historians of science. It is thoroughly original and written with grace and clarity. The book ought to be fundamental not only for historians of science, but for anyone who wishes to appreciate the events and significance of the French Revolution." --Theodore M. Porter, author of Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age "A remarkable piece of work and a worthy sequel to Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime . Written in an elegant and punchy style, the book is sustained by a strong thesis that will interest a wide range of historians. It will also be seen, like the previous volume, as an important work of reference. Where else could we find such finely documented accounts of the last year of the Acad Author Biography Charles Coulston Gillispie is Dayton-Stockton Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University, where he founded the program in History and Philosophy of Science in 1960. His books include "The Edge of Objectivity";" Lazare Carnot Savant"; "The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation";" Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science"; and "Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime" (all Princeton). He was also the editor of the "Dictionary of Scientific Biography" (16 volumes, Scribners, 1970-1980). In 1997 he was awarded the Balzan Prize in the History and Philosophy of Science. Table of Contents Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Chapter I. Science and Politics under the Constituent Assembly 7 1.Science and Politics in 1789 7 2.Bailly and the Constituent Assembly 15 3.Lavoisier and the Arsenal 25 4.Vicq d'Azyr and the Reform of Medicine 36 5.Condorcet and Truth in Politics 56 6.Condorcet, Bailly, and the Governance of Paris 67 7.Political Economy 78 8.Varennes and the Champ-de-Mars 96 Chapter II. Education, Science, and Politics 101 1.Scientists in the Legislative Assembly 101 2.The Condorcet Plan for National Education 110 3.Talleyrand's Educational Proposal 124 4.The Educational Legacy of the Old Regime 129 5.The Political Setting 136 6.The Convention 140 7.Education and Science 146 Chapter III. The Museum of Natural History and the Academy of Science: Rise and Fall 165 1.Natural History and Theoretical Science 165 2.The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle 167 3.The Academy of Science in the Revolutionary Climate 184 4.Artisans and Inventors 195 5.The Last Year of the Academy 210 Chapter IV. The Metric System 223 1.Background 223 2.Proposals 235 3.Methods and Instruments 250 4.Operations in the Field 258 5.The Provisional Meter 278 Chapter V. Science and the Terror 286 1.Terror amd Expropriation 286 2.The Republican Calendar 293 3.The Observatory of Paris 298 4.The College de France 306 5.Individual Destinies 311 6.The Calvary of Condorcet 326 Chapter VI. Scientists at War 339 1.The Monge Connection 339 2.Weaponry 358 3.The Mobilization of Scientists 381 4.Munitions and Guns 397 5.Inventions 428 6.Natural History and Conquest 433 7.Effects of Wartime: Science and the State 444 Chapter VII. Thermidorean Convention and Directory 445 1.Institutionalization of French Science, 1794-1804 445 2.Institut de France, Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, and Bureau des Longitudes 446 3.Completion of the Metric System 458 4.The Ecole Normale de l'an III 494 5.The Ecole Polytechnique 520 6.The Ecole de Sante and Clinical Medicine 540 Chapter VIII. Bonaparte and the Scientific Community 551 1.Monge in Italy, 1796-1798 551 2.The Egyptian Expedition 557 3.The Ideologues and 18 Brumaire 600 4.The Consulate, 1799-1804 611 5.Napoleon and Science 640 Chapter IX. Positivist Science 652 1.Discipline Formation 652 2.Comparative Anatomy 655 3.Experimental Physiology 662 4.Mathematical Physics 675 5.Conclusion 694 Acknowledgments 697 Bibliography 699 2.Index 717 Review "Gillispie is, clearly, thoroughly at home in the language and concepts of the sciences: of pure mathematics, chemistry, mathematical physics and astronomy, biology and natural history, not to mention engineering, mining, and agronomy. He is also a master of lucid explanation, so far as explanation to the ignorant can go, as well being the teller of some highly gripping tales; and he has an admirable, logically taut, often quietly witty, prose style."--P.N. Furbank, New York Review of Books "This volume can be read as either a saga of science or a series of short, loosely interconnected stories. The author is at his best when he is reporting colorful episodes, portraying a character, disentangling a plot or dissecting an institution."--Nature "This review cannot do justice to a magisterial work that illuminates a critical phase in the historical relationship between thought and action, the classical theme of humanism... As a work of synthesis and interpretation, it is written with the clarity, elegance, and insight the subject deserves."--Joseph W. Konvitz, American Historical Review "So thoroughly does Gillispie know his subject, that his account reads more like Thomas Carlyle's gripping The French Revolutio, Princeton University Press<
