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The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine and Modernity: 1789-1914. By David Knight. Polity, 272pp, Pounds 55.00 and Pounds 17.99. ISBN 9780745636757 and 36764. Published 9 October 2009
The explosive growth of science means that each successive century gets harder to sum up. There is no decent single-volume survey of 20th-century science, although at least one intrepid author is at work on one. Even the teeming 19th century threatens to burst the bounds of a book.
David Knight, long one of the most prolific historians of science, has already had a crack at the 19th century in The Age of Science, published in 1986. Now, he offers a career-capping return to the job in The Making of Modern Science, not to be confused with Peter Bowler and Iwan Morus' 2005 book Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey, which is that still rarer item, a single-volume survey of the entire field.
The year after a protracted bout of Darwinian celebrations, and acclaim for Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder, few need...