The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine and Modernity: 1789-1914

Of all the inventions of the nineteenth century, the scientist isone of the most striking. In revolutionary France the sciencestudent, taught by men active in research, was born
and ageneration later, the graduate student doing a PhD emerged inGermany. In 1833 the word 'scientist' was coined
fortyyears later science (increasingly specialised) was a becoming aprofession. Men of science rivalled clerics and critics as sages
they were honoured as national treasures, and buried in statefunerals. Their new ideas invigorated the life of the mind.Peripatetic congresses, great exhibitions, museums, technicalcolleges and laboratories blossomed
and new industries based onchemistry and electricity brought prosperity and power, economicand military. Eighteenth-century steam engines precededunderstanding of the physics underlying them
but electrictelegraphs and motors were applied science, based upon painstakinginterpretation of nature. The ideas, discoveries and inventions ofscientists transformed the world: lives were longer and healthier, cities and empires grew, societies became urban rather thanagrarian, the local became global. And by the opening years of thetwentieth century, science was spreading beyond Europe and NorthAmerica, and women were beginning to be visible in the ranks ofscientists.

Bringing together the people, events, and discoveries of thisexciting period into a lively narrative, this book will beessential reading both for students of the history of science andfor anyone interested in the foundations of the world as we know ittoday.