Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Constructing Scientific Communities ed. by Gowan Dawson et al. (review)

Bringing together research by historians of science and scholars of literature and science, Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Constructing Scientific Communities explores in detail the two-way relationship between nineteenth-century science periodicals and scientific communities. It demonstrates how the material conditions of periodical production and the different readerships targeted and constructed by science periodicals influenced the ways in which scientific societies and publications developed at specific moments. These factors, in turn, affected the broader development of scientific disciplines themselves. By including readers as active participants and contributors, commercial science publications could improve their chances in an increasingly competitive periodical market. However, questions of authority, legitimacy, and inclusivity were never far away, leading to complex negotiations between scientists and amateurs and between societies and commercial publishers. As Geoffrey Belknap stresses at the end of chapter five, balance was key.

The volume begins with an introduction by Gowan Dawson and Jonathan R. Topham that situates this study in relation to previous work on both nineteenth-century science periodicals and communities. Dawson and Topham are clear about what this volume can and cannot do: given that "a conservative estimate suggests that something well in excess of a thousand" scientific periodicals were published in nineteenth-century Britain, the individual chapters consider "a series of representative examples" rather than providing "comprehensive treatment" (5). This means that certain sciences, including chemistry, do not feature. This volume will certainly form a stepping stone to further work on science periodicals, including non-British publications and periodicals focused on sciences not covered here.

Part one, "New Formats for New Readers," consists of three essays that provide a broad overview of nineteenth-century science periodicals and their material contexts. These chapters will be significant touchstones for further research in this field, and there is much here of use to periodical researchers working in other areas as well. Dawson and Topham explore the availability, changes to, and development of scientific, medical, and technical periodicals from the end of the eighteenth century through the end of the nineteenth, showing how such developments fit into the growth of nineteenth-century periodicals more broadly. In chapter two, Topham argues convincingly for the importance of attention to changing technologies of illustration in the period between 1790 and 1840, and he explores the relative advantages and disadvantages of each technology in terms of ease of use, expense, and aesthetics. Alex Csiszar then looks at the complicated relationships between the transactions, proceedings, and journals of learned societies and the ways in which each format developed in response to the commercial press.

After these more general chapters, part two, "Defining the Communities of Science," moves to essays focused on particular areas of science in order to provide case studies of associated periodicals. Thus we have Dawson on geology journals, Belknap on natural history periodicals, Matthew Wale on just one entomology publication, Graeme Gooday on physics periodicals, and Bernard Lightman on astronomical society journals. The chapters take rather different approaches. While Dawson seeks to cover a broad range of publications, others employ a more limited but detailed focus, and Wale looks at a single periodical, the Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer. These different methodologies sit well alongside each other and highlight the utility of each to periodical research.

The two essays in part three, "Managing the Boundaries of Medicine," consider journals dealing with medical and public health topics. Sally Frampton makes a convincing case for the value of "publicly oriented medical titles," which were rejected by the professional medical community at the time and have been overlooked by historians of medicine since (330). Similarly, Sally Shuttleworth focuses on sanitary and public health journals which, she argues, have been unfairly overlooked. A select bibliography at the end of the book provides a valuable resource for researchers in this field. Unfortunately, I could not find the "useful searchable list of more than one thousand British science...