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Steven Shapin Home

 

Books

• Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985) (with Simon Schaffer).
• A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
• The Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
• Wetenschap is cultuur, trans. Fred Hendriks and with an introduction by Lissa Roberts (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 2005) (with Simon Schaffer).
• The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

 

Edited Books

• Natural Order: Historical Studies of Scientific Culture (London & Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979) (with Barry Barnes).
• Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) (with Christopher Lawrence).

 

Articles

• "Science and the Modern World," in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Third Ed., eds Edward Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), pp. 433-448.
• “Expertise, Common Sense, and the Atkins Diet,” Public Science in Liberal Democracy, ed. Peter W. B. Phillips (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 174-193.
• Hyper-Professionalism and the Crisis of Readership in the History of Science,” Isis 96 (2005), 238-243.
• “Science,” in New Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, eds Tony Bennett, Larry Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 314-317.
• "Who is the Industrial Scientist? Commentary from Academic Sociology and from the Shop-Floor in the United States, ca. 1900-ca. 1970," in The Science–Industry Nexus: History, Policy, Implications, Nobel Symposium 123, eds Karl Grandin, NinaWormbs, and Sven Widmalm (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 2004), pp. 337-363.
• "Trusting George Cheyne: Scientific Expertise, Common Sense, and Moral Authority in Early Eighteenth-Century Dietetic Medicine," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 77 (2003), 263-297.
• "How to Eat Like a Gentleman: Dietetics and Ethics in Early Modern England," in Right Living: An Anglo-American Tradition of Self-Help Medicine and Hygiene, ed. Charles E. Rosenberg (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 21-58.
• "Proverbial Economies: How an Understanding of Some Linguistic and Social Features of Common Sense Can Throw Light on More Prestigious Bodies of Knowledge, Science For Example," Social Studies of Science, 31 (2001), 731-769.
• "Who Was J. Robert Oppenheimer? Charisma and Complex Organization," Social Studies of Science, 30 (2000), 545-590[with Charles Thorpe].
• "Descartes the Doctor: Rationalism and Its Therapies," The British Journal for the History of Science, 33 (2000), 131-154.
• "How to be Antiscientific," in The One Culture? A Conversation about Science, eds Jay A. Labinger and Harry Collins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 99-115
• "Science and Prejudice" (published in German as "Vorurteilsfreie Wissenschaft und Gute Gesellschaft: Zur Geschichte eines Vorurteil,"), in Transit: Europaische Revue, 16 (Winter 1998/99), 51-63
• "Rarely Pure and Never Simple: Talking about Truth," in Configurations, 7 (1999), 1-14.
• "The Philosopher and the Chicken: On the Dietetics of Disembodied Knowledge," in Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge, eds Christopher Lawrence and Steven Shapin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 21-50.
• "Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of Science," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, n.s. 23 (1998), 5-12.
• "Cordelia's Love: Credibility and the Social Studies of Science," in Perspectives on Science, 3 (1995), 255-275.
• "Here and Everywhere: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge," in Annual Review of Sociology, 21 (1995), 289-321.
• "Discipline and Bounding: The History and Sociology of Science as Seen through the Externalism-Internalism Debate," in History of Science, 30 (1992), 333-369.
• "A Scholar and a Gentleman: The Problematic Identity of the Scientific Practitioner in Early Modern England," in History of Science, 24 (1991), 279-327.
• "The Mind is Its Own Place': Science and Solitude in Seventeenth-Century England," in Science in Context, 4 (1991), 191-218.
• “Science and the Public,” in Companion to the History of Modern Science, eds R. C. Olby et al. (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 990-1007.
• "The Invisible Technician,” in American Scientist 77 (November-December 1989), 554-563.
• "Who was Robert Hooke?" in Robert Hooke: New Studies, eds Michael Hunter and Simon Schaffer (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1989), pp. 253-285.
• "Understanding the Merton Thesis,” Isis 79 (1988), 594-605.
• "House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," in Isis, 77 (1988), 373-404. [Winner of 1990 Derek Price Prize of History of Science Society.]
• "Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle’s Literary Technology,” in Social Studies of Science 14 (1984), 481-520.
• "History of Science and Its Sociological Reconstructions," in History of Science, 20 (1982), 157-211.
• "Of Gods and Kings: Natural Philosophy and Politics in the Leibniz-Clarke Disputes,” in Isis 77 (1981), 187-215.
• "The Politics of Observation: Cerebral Anatomy and Social Interests in the Edinburgh Phrenology Disputes," in On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge, ed. Roy Wallis, Sociological Review Monographs, vol. xxvii (Keele: Keele University Press, 1979), pp. 139-178.
• "Science, Nature, and Control: Interpreting Mechanics' Institutes," in Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977), 31-74 [with Barry Barnes].
• "Head and Hand: Rhetorical Resources in British Pedagogical Writing, 1770-1850," in Oxford Review of Education, 2 (1976), 231-254 [with Barry Barnes].

 

Journalism

The New Yorker

• Man with a Plan: Herbert Spencer's theory of everything.
• What Else is New? “The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900”, David Edgerton
• Vegetable Love “The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times”, Tristram Stuart
• Sick City “The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World”, Steven Johnson
• Paradise Sold “Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew”, Samuel Fromartz, “Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California”, Julie Guthman, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”, Michael Pollan
• Eat and Run “The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict”, William Leith
• Liquid Assets “A History of the World in 6 Glasses”, Tom Standage
• Cleanup Hitters “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big” José Canseco

 

London Review of Books

• “I’m a Surfer” [J. Craig Venter, A Life Decoded], London Review of Books 30, no. 6 (20 March 2008), pp. 5-8.
• Floating Medicine Chests [H. Cook, Matters of Exchange], London Review of Books, 30, no. 3 (7 February 2008), pp. 30-31.
• Possessed by the Idols [D. Wootton, Bad Medicine], London Review of Books, 28, no. 23 (30 November 2006), pp. 31-33.
• When Men Started Doing It [B. Buford, Heat], London Review of Books, 28, no. 16 (17 August 2006), pp. 3-5.
• At the Amsterdam [B. Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee and M. Ellis, Coffee: A Cultural History], London Review of Books, 28, no. 8 (20 April 2006), pp. 12-14.
• Tod aus Luft [D. Charles, Between Genius and Genocide], London Review of Books, 28, no. 2 (26 January 2006), pp. 7-8
• What Did You Expect? [A. Smith, Moondust], London Review of Books, 27, no. 17 (1 September 2005), pp. 31-32.
• Milk and Lemon [R. Feynman, Letters], London Review of Books, 27, no. 13 (7 July 2005), pp. 10-13.
• Hedonistic Fruit Bombs [R. Parker, Bordeaux, Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide and J. Nossiter, Mondovino], London Review of Books, 27, no.3 (3 February 2005), pp. 30-32
• The Great Neurotic Art [R. Atkins, Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution and others], London Review of Books, 27, no. 15 (5 August 2004), pp. 16-18
• Talking with Alfred [J. Conant, Tuxedo Park], London Review of Books, 27, no. 8 (15 April 2004), pp. 20-22.
• Cheese and Late Modernity [P. Boisard, Camembert: A National Myth], London Review of Books, 25, no. 22 (20 November 2003), pp. 11-12, 14-15.
• Ivory Trade [D. Bok, Universities in the Marketplace and H. Etzkowitz, MIT and the Rise of Entrepreneurial Science], London Review of Books, 25, no. 17 (11 September 2003), pp. 15-19.
• Rough Trade [S. Inwood, The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Strange and Inventive Life of Robert Hooke], London Review of Books, 25, no. 5 (6 March 2003), pp. 14-16.
• One Peculiar Nut [R. Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes], London Review of Books, 25, no. 2 (23 January 2003), pp. 17-18.
• Barbecue of the Vanities [K. Albala, Eating Right in the Renaissance and M. Nestle, Food Politics], London Review of Books, 29, no. 16 (22 August 2002), pp. 21-23.
• Megaton Man [E. Teller, Memoirs], London Review of Books, 29, no. 8 (25 April 2002), pp. 18-20.
• Dear Prudence [S. Toulmin, Return to Reason], London Review of Books, 29, no. 2 (24 January 2002), pp. 25-27.
• Guests in the President’s House [D. Greenberg, Science, Money, and Politics], London Review of Books, 23, no. 20 (18 October 2001), pp. 3, 6-7.
• A Man’s Man’s World [A. Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential], London Review of Books, 22, no. 23 (30 November 2000), pp. 19-20.
• Don’t Let That Crybaby in Here Again [S. Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb and M. Palevsky, Atomic Fragments], London Review of Books, 22, no. 17 (7 September 2000), pp. 15-16.
• Nobel Savage [K. Mullis, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field], London Review of Books, 21, no. 13 (1 July 1999), pp. 17-18.