Forces of nature The women who changed science

Anna Reser

Book - 2021

From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of Nature sets the record straight and charts the fascinating history of women's discoveries in science. In the ancient and medieval world, women served as royal physicians and nurses, taught mathematics, studied the stars, and practiced midwifery. As natural philosophers, physicists, anatomists, and botanists, they were central to the great intellectual flourishing of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. More recently women have been crucially involved in the Manhattan Project, pioneering space missions and much more. Despite their recor...d of illustrious achievements, even today very few women win Nobel Prizes in science.

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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
London, United Kingdom : Frances Lincoln 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Anna Reser (author)
Other Authors
Leila McNeill (author)
Physical Description
271 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 254-271) and index.
ISBN
9780711248977
  • Introduction Reading Women's Silence in the History of Science
  • Section I. Antiquity to the Middles Ages
  • Physicians, Midwives, and "Grannies"
  • The Supernatural and the Sanctified
  • Section II. The Renaissance & The Enlightenment
  • Women Calculate Their Own Path to Science
  • The Wives and Sisters of Scientific Partnerships
  • Women and the Science of the Body in the Scientific Revolution
  • Empire and Exploitation in the Age of Exploration
  • Section III. The Long Nineteenth Century
  • Women Science Writers and Popularizers
  • Botany for Ladies
  • From the Home to the Hospital
  • Home Physicians and Lady Doctors
  • Section IV. The Twentieth Century, Pre-World War II
  • "Powerful levers that move worlds!"
  • The Home as Laboratory
  • Women's Reproductive Freedom and the Eugenics Movement
  • Women Archaeologists and Anthropologists Humanize their Past
  • What Cannot Be Unmade
  • Section V. The Twentieth Century, Post-World War II
  • The Plight of Women Refugee Scientists Coming to America
  • Nature's Housekeepers Begin a Movement
  • The Double Bind in the Sciences
  • More than Astronauts
  • Reconfiguring the Female
  • The Problem with "Female Firsts"
  • Afterword
  • Other women to inspire
  • Index
  • Acknowledgments & Picture Credits
  • Endnotes
  • Bibliography
Review by Booklist Review

Who is Sarah Bowdich Lee? Mary Mahoney? These are just two trailblazers and pioneers introduced in this marvelous volume, who, regardless of rampant sexism and racism, managed to achieve great scientific discoveries and help foster social change. Starting from antiquity and working up to the present, historians of science Reser and McNeil spotlight the many brilliant women who have been left out of textbooks and academic papers. They begin in ancient China and move on to Europe during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, underlining significant strides made in the areas of astronomy, mathematics, female anatomy, and botany. As their survey reaches the modern age, the authors cover developments in medicine, engineering, physics, the Manhattan Project, and space exploration. As for Sarah Bowdich Lee, she was an opponent of slavery who became the first European women to systemize the flora and fauna of West Africa. In 1879, Mary Mahoney became the first Black woman to earn a professional nursing degree in the U.S. Readers will end up with a whole new list of heroes to contemplate.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This expansive history from Reser and McNeill, historians and coeditors of Lady Science magazine, sheds light on women's contributions to science throughout history. For women, they note, participating in science "was a constant clawing at the edges of spaces where they were not permitted," and the authors survey how women have shaped scientific discovery in ways not captured by traditional historical archives. Starting in antiquity, the authors capture women whose discoveries have been overlooked: women practiced medicine in ancient China, for example, but only men wrote about it and considered women's practices outdated. The 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meanwhile, proposed a cosmological model of the universe that was only taken seriously because she was believed to have "divine vision" and to be "speaking for God." Maria Cunitz, a 17th-century mathematician and astronomer, is responsible for "the earliest surviving work of science written by a woman," and Elizabeth Elmy "enlisted botany in her feminist cause" in 1895. The authors cover an impressive amount of ground, and the condensed profiles peppered throughout keep things moving. Full of eye-opening information, this unique perspective on women's history will enthrall history buffs, science enthusiasts, and feminists. (Apr.)

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