Steven Shapin

Steven Shapin is a historian of science at Harvard. The Scientific Revolution will be published in a second edition this summer.

In the LRB Archive:

• Think like a neutron: Fermi’s Paradoxes · 24 May 2018

  • The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age by David N. Schwartz

• Bare Bones: Rhinoceros v. Megatherium · 8 March 2018

  • The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium: An Essay in Natural History by Juan Pimentel, translated by Peter Mason

• The Superhuman Upgrade: The Book That Explains It All · 13 July 2017

  • Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

• More than Machines: Man or Machine? · 1 December 2016

  • The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick by Jessica Riskin

• What do you mean by a lie?: Haeckel’s Embryos · 5 May 2016

  • Haeckel’s Embryos: Images, Evolution and Fraud by Nick Hopwood

• Confusion of Tongues: Scientific Languages · 3 December 2015

  • Scientific Babel: The Language of Science from the Fall of Latin to the Rise of English by Michael Gordin

• Pretence for Prattle: Tea · 30 July 2015

  • Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the World by Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton and Matthew Mauger

• Libel on the Human Race: Malthus · 5 June 2014

  • Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet by Robert Mayhew

• How worried should we be?: How Not to Handle Nukes · 23 January 2014

  • Command and Control by Eric Schlosser

• Fat Man: Churchill’s Bomb · 26 September 2013

  • Churchill’s Bomb: A Hidden History of Science, War and Politics by Graham Farmelo

• Catastrophism: The Pseudoscience Wars · 8 November 2012

  • The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by Michael Gordin

• Plus or Minus One Ear: Weights and Measures · 30 August 2012

  • World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement by Robert Crease

• An Example of the Good Life: Michael Polanyi · 15 December 2011

  • Michael Polanyi and His Generation: Origins of the Social Construction of Science by Mary Jo Nye

• Gutted · 30 June 2011

  • A Modern History of the Stomach: Gastric Illness, Medicine and British Society, 1800-1950 by Ian Miller

• What’s your dust worth?: Corpses · 14 April 2011

  • After We Die: The Life and Times of the Human Cadaver by Norman Cantor

• Good Housekeeping: William Petty · 20 January 2011

  • William Petty and the Ambitions of Political Arithmetic by Ted McCormick

• Uncle of the Bomb: The Oppenheimer Brothers · 23 September 2010

  • Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and The World He Made Up by K.C. Cole

• Down to the Last Cream Puff: The End of Haute Cuisine · 5 August 2010

  • Au Revoir to All That: The Rise and Fall of French Cuisine by Michael Steinberger

• The Darwin Show · 7 January 2010

• Against the Pussyfoots: George Saintsbury · 10 September 2009

  • Notes on a Cellar-Book by George Saintsbury, edited by Thomas Pinney

• Abishag’s Revenge: Who wants to live for ever? · 26 March 2009

  • Mortal Coil: A Short History of Living Longer by David Boyd Haycock

• Species-Mongers: Joseph Hooker and the Dead Foreign Weeds · 20 November 2008

  • Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science by Jim Endersby

• I’m a Surfer: What’s the Genome Worth? · 20 March 2008

  • A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life by Craig Venter

• Floating Medicine Chests: the Dutch East India Company · 7 February 2008

  • Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine and Science in the Dutch Golden Age by Harold Cook

• Possessed by the Idols: Does Medicine Work? · 30 November 2006

  • Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates by David Wootton

• When Men Started Doing It: At the Grill Station · 17 August 2006

  • Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford

• At the Amsterdam: A Wakefull and Civill Drink · 20 April 2006

  • The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffee House by Brian Cowan
  • Coffee House: A Cultural History by Markman Ellis

• Tod aus Luft: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber · 26 January 2006

  • Between Genius and Genocide: The Tragedy of Fritz Haber, Father of Chemical Warfare by Daniel Charles

• What did you expect?: the banality of moon-talk · 1 September 2005

  • Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith

• Milk and Lemon: The Excesses of Richard Feynman · 7 July 2005

  • Don’t You Have Time to Think? The Letters of Richard Feynman edited by Michelle Feynman

• Hedonistic Fruit Bombs: How good is Château Pavie? · 3 February 2005

  • Bordeaux by Robert Parker
  • The Wine Buyer’s Guide by Robert Parker and Pierre-Antoine Rovani
  • Mondovino directed by Jonathan Nossiter

• The Great Neurotic Art: tucking into Atkins · 5 August 2004

  • Dr Atkins’ New Diet Revolution: The No-Hunger, Luxurious Weight Loss Plan that Really Works! by Robert C. Atkins
  • Atkins for Life: The Next Level, Permanent Weight Loss and Good Health by Robert C. Atkins
  • The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss by Arthur Agatston

• Talking with Alfred: Mr Loomis’s Obsession · 15 April 2004

  • Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War Two by Jennet Conant

• Cheese and Late Modernity: The changing rind of Camembert · 20 November 2003

  • Camembert: A National Myth by Pierre Boisard, translated by Richard Miller

• Ivory Trade: The Entrepreneurial University · 11 September 2003

  • MIT and the Rise of Entrepreneurial Science by Henry Etzkowitz
  • Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialisation of Higher Education by Derek Bok

• Rough Trade: Robert Hooke · 6 March 2003

  • The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Strange and Inventive Life of Robert Hooke 1635-1703 by Stephen Inwood

• One Peculiar Nut: The Life of René Descartes · 23 January 2003

  • Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes by Richard A. Watson

• Barbecue of the Vanities: Big Food · 22 August 2002

  • Eating Right in the Renaissance by Ken Albala
  • Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health by Marion Nestle

• Megaton Man: The Original Dr Strangelove · 25 April 2002

  • Memoirs: A 20th-Century Journey in Science and Politics by Edward Teller and Judith Shoolery

• Dear Prudence: Stephen Toulmin · 14 January 2002

  • Return to Reason by Stephen Toulmin

• Guests in the President’s House: Science Inc. · 18 October 2001

  • Science, Money and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion by Daniel Greenberg

• A Man’s Man’s World: kitchens · 30 November 2000

  • Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

• Don’t let that crybaby in here again: The Manhattan Project · 7 September 2000

  • In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist by S.S. Schweber
  • Atomic Fragments: A Daughter’s Questions by Mary Palevsky

• Fat is a manifest tissue: George Cheyne · 10 August 2000

  • Obesity and Depression in the Enlightenment: The Life and Times of George Cheyne by Anita Guerrini

• Trust me: French DNA · 27 April 2000

  • French DNA: Trouble in Purgatory by Paul Rabinow

• Nobel Savage: Kary Mullis · 1 July 1999

  • Dancing Naked in the Mind Field by Kary Mullis

• Scientific Antlers: Fraud in the Lab · 4 March 1999

  • The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science and Character by Daniel Kevles

• Sailing Scientist: Edmund Halley · 2 July 1998

  • Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas by Alan Cook

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