You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Christina Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach have created in these two volumes a panoramic history of German theoretical physics. Bridging social, institutional, and intellectual history, they chronicle the work of the researchers who, from the first years of the nineteenth century, strove for an intellectual mastery of nature. Volume 1 opens with an account of physics in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century and of German physicists' reception of foreign mathematical and experimental work. Jungnickel and McCormmach follow G. S. Ohm, Wilhelm Weber, Franz Neumann, and others as these scientists work out the new possibilities for physics, introduce student laboratories and instruction in mathematical physics, organize societies and journals, and establish and advance major theories of classical physics. Before the end of the nineteenth century, German physics and its offspring, theoretical physics, had acquired nearly their present organizational forms. The foundations of the classical picture of the physical world had been securely laid, preparing the way for the developments that are the subject of volume 2.
Switzerland today is faced with a profound dilemma—its village life is dying, a casualty of the collision between communal norms and the need for national survival in an industrial, urbanizing world. Benjamin Barber traces the origins and evolution of communal liberty in the group of alpine villages that make up modern Canton Graubunden, and recreates their poignant thousand-year struggle to maintain this tradition in the face of a hostile environment, hierarchical feudal institutions, and European power polities. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
In the decades between the French Revolution and the first stirrings of liberalism in the 1830s, German political culture defined itself apart from that of its neighbors to the west. Focusing on the career of Johann Cotta, the preeminent publisher of his generation, this book offers a lens through which we can more fully view and understand these turbulent years. Cotta is a familiar figure in the history of German letters, but his public life has never been studied comprehensively. He financed and directed the Allgemeine Zeitung of Augsburg, which would become one of the great European newspapers of the nineteenth century. He was the first German to convert money and cultural prestige into p...
Whether in science or in international politics, neutrality has sometimes been promoted, not only as a viable political alternative but as a lofty ideal – in politics by nations proclaiming their peacefulness, in science as an underpinning of epistemology, in journalism and other intellectual pursuits as a foundation of a professional ethos. Time and again scientists and other intellectuals have claimed their endeavors to be neutral, elevated above the world of partisan conflict and power politics. This volume studies the resonances between neutrality in science and culture and neutrality in politics. By analyzing the activities of scientists, intellectuals, and politicians (sometimes over...
Both a biography of Plya's life, and a review of his many mathematical achievements by today's experts.
Winner of the 1987 Pfizer Award of the History of Science Society "A majestic study of a most important spoch of intellectual history."—Brian Pippard, Times Literary Supplement "The authors' use of archival sources hitherto almost untouched gives their story a startling vividness. These volumes are among the finest works produced by historians of physics."—Jed Z. Buchwald, Isis "The authors painstakingly reconstruct the minutiae of laboratory budgets, instrument collections, and student numbers; they disentangle the intrigues of faculty appointments and the professional values those appointments reflected; they explore collegial relationships among physicists; and they document the unending campaign of scientists to wring further support for physics from often reluctant ministries."—R. Steven Turner, Science "Superbly written and exhaustively researched."—Peter Harman, Nature
First published in 1956, Nationalism and Liberty explores the possibility of nationalism being compatible with respect for individual liberty and diversity by studying the example of Switzerland. Composed of German, French and Italian speaking populations which in the age of nationalism had been involved in many bloody and bitter conflicts in Europe, Switzerland had succeeded in establishing harmony and cooperation. The author argues that Switzerland can serve as a model for Europe – not only for the peaceful cooperation of different peoples, but also for the growth of unity. This book will be of interest to students of history, political science, international relations and geography.
This book explores the rise of theoretical physics in 19th century Germany. The authors show how the junior second physicist in German universities over time became the theoretical physicist, of equal standing to the experimental physicist. Gustav Kirchhoff, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Max Planck are among the great German theoretical physicists whose work and career are examined in this book. Physics was then the only natural science in which theoretical work developed into a major teaching and research specialty in its own right. Readers will discover how German physicists arrived at a well-defined field of theoretical physics with well understood and generally accepted goals and needs. The...