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Vol. 48, No. 1 January 2019 Newsof the lHistoryetter of Science Society Table of Contents HSS’s New Book Review Editor, HSS’s New Book Review Editor, Projit Mukharji Projit Mukharji 1 [Editor Note: We invited Projit to introduce himself as Isis’s Book Review Editor, effective 1 July 2019. On the Origin of Orchid 3 Readers of the Newsletter may wish to refer back to Alexandra (Alix) Hui’s (rhymes with Dewey) and Massimo Mazzotti on the Genoa Matt Lavine’s article in the July 2018 Newsletter.] Science Festival 6 Let me begin by thanking Alix and Matt for inviting the despair, and the thrills that Diplomatic Studies of Science: me to be the Book Review Editor for Isis. I first came go into writing an academic The Nuclear Diplomacies to truly appreciate the academic book review in the book. A good review in my Workshop in Japan and Greece 5 Fall of 1999. It was my first semester as a Master’s view must always begin with Member News 13 student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New an appreciation of that—an In Memoriam: Adolf Grünbaum 23 Delhi. Keen to earn my academic spurs, I had just admiration for what has been accomplished and the written a rather precocious and needlessly critical hurdles that have been overcome. News from the Profession 25 review of an aging classic in the field for a class That said, most academic authors also crave assignment. My professor, Majid Hayat Siddiqi, called honest feedback. Unfortunately, such feedback me into his office to talk about the assignment. Instead has increasingly become as scarce as hen’s teeth. of going into details about my review, however, he Overworked and over-professionalized as we all are started explaining to me the difficulties of historical today, we seldom have the time or the candor to give research and publication. In his own roundabout honest, detailed feedback to even our best friends. It way, before I knew it, he had me sympathizing with seems unfair that after an author has invested so much the travails of would-be authors. At the end of our intellectual and emotional energy into a book, that she conversation, which had touched upon many things still must struggle to find out what her community but not my review per se, he insisted, “you have to of peers really thinks about the book. This is why I appreciate how much it takes to write a book before disagree with many of my good friends who tell me you review it. It is easy to criticize a book but much that the age of the standard 800-to-1000-word review more difficult to write one.” I came away that day has passed. I strongly believe that the review remains feeling more than a bit ashamed for having savaged a crucial mechanism for the heartfelt appreciation of the fading classic. Having now written two books an author’s achievements, as well as a forum through myself, I feel I have a better sense of the challenges, which to convey our honest feedback including Continued on Page 2 History of Science Society Newsletter HSS’s New Book Review Editor, Projit Mukharji, cont. History of Science Society Executive Office legitimate criticisms. At the risk of sounding I would also love to hear from you any History of Science Society hackneyed, doing the book reviews right is suggestions that you might have to make the 440 Geddes Hall University of Notre Dame our way of continuing to recognize, honor, book reviews more pertinent, more useful, Notre Dame, IN 46556 and participate in the scholarly lives of our and more readable. I am particularly keen Phone: 574-631-1194; Fax: 574-631-1533 E-mail: [email protected] intellectual peers. on developing conversations across sub- Web site: http://www.hssonline.org/ disciplinary specializations, to find points of Today as our field expands both geographically Subscription Inquiries common interest that might connect a historian University of Chicago Press and methodologically, the reviews have become Phone: 877-705-1878; Fax 877-705-1879 one of the few ways in which we can remain of biology with a historian of physics, or a E-mail: [email protected] medieval Europeanist with a modern Africanist. Or write: University of Chicago Press, part of a common intellectual community and Subscription Fulfillment Manager, PO Box speak across proliferating silos. Book reviews, My ambition is to think of book reviews as a 37005, Chicago, IL 60637-7363 for instance, can provide a window for a calling card that will introduce work in one sub- Moving? field to another, while still providing feedback Please notify both the HSS Executive Office and historian of Chinese astronomy into the history the University of Chicago Press. of American cybernetics. It can offer the scholar that is cogent and informed. Editorial Policies, Advertising and Submissions of German romanticism a chance to assess a As a scholar educated on two different The History of Science Society Newsletter is published in January, April, July, and October, piece of information she has found in a book on continents and having taught now on three, I and sent to all individual members of the Society. colonial Iberian science. am also keenly aware of the need to speak across The Newsletter is edited and published in the academic cultures. And, more importantly, I am Executive Office. The format and editorial policies This is the reason I agreed to take on this job. are determined by the Executive Director in But I am also well aware of the challenges that committed to conducting such conversations consultation with the Society Editor. All advertising in a serious, respectful, and meaningful way copy must be submitted in electronic form. lie ahead. Given the breadth of the field, it Advertisements are accepted on a space-available is impossible for me or anyone else to know rather than indulging in patronizing tokenisms. basis only, and the Society reserves the right not Here again, the way books are reviewed, whom to print a submission. The rates are as follows: Full of ideal potential reviewers in every sub-field page (10 x 7”), $625; Horizontal or Vertical Half by themselves. Even if one finds the perfect they are sent to, and where, can do much. It is page (5 x 7”), $375; Quarter page (5 x 3.5”), $225. simply not enough to review books published in The deadline for insertion orders is six weeks prior reviewer, convincing a scholar to make time to the month of publication and should be sent to for writing a review in the midst of a busy multiple academic niches. We must endeavor to [email protected]. Please send photographs in a do it in a way that does not reproduce dividing jpeg format, with a maximum size of 1024 pixels and schedule would be yet another challenge. These file size of 1 MB to maintain quality during sizing and challenges have, perhaps, always been the lines and appear tokenistic. printing. The deadline for news, announcements, and job/fellowship/prize listings is firm: four weeks lot of review editors, but with an expanding, All this might seem like a tall order, but I am prior to the month of publication. Long items ever more diverse field, they have increased hopeful that with all your support and help, (feature stories) should be submitted eight weeks prior to the month of publication. Please send all manifold. There is no way to overcome these we, as a society of peers, might achieve a lot material to the attention of the Executive Office: without craving all your indulgences. together. I am excited at the road that lies ahead [email protected]. Continued on Page 3 © 2019 by the History of Science Society 2 History of Science Society Newsletter • January 2019 History of Science Society Newsletter cont. On the Origin of Orchid Projit Mukharji, by Jim Endersby and hope you will join me in both sustaining and growing the book reviews in the years to come. I picked up a copy of Stephen Jay Gould’s collection Hen’s Teeth and Horses Toes (1983), ………… on the recommendation of an old friend and Projit Bihari Mukharji is an Associate was hooked immediately. I loved Gould’s Professor in the History & Sociology of Science characteristic trick of beginning with a tiny, department at the University of Pennsylvania. apparently insignificant detail. He would then He received his PhD from the University of contextualize and analyze, explaining and London and taught in the UK and Canada, clarifying, but never over-simplifying. When he before joining UPenn. Mukharji is interested pulled back from that initial tightly framed close- in the interactions between different scientific up, it was usually to reveal a vast vista of time— traditions in modern and early modern South geological, evolutionary or historical—giving his Asia. He has authored two monographs, viz. reader the chance, as William Blake put it, “To Nationalizing the Body: The Medical Market, see a world in a grain of sand.” Print and Daktari Medicine (London, 2009) and Doctoring Traditions: Ayurveda, Small Under Gould’s influence, I returned to university Technologies and Braided Sciences (Chicago, and studied to become an academic historian, 2016). Email: [email protected] but tried never to write like one. As a student, Jim Endersby (right) receiving the Davis Prize from I often felt that some academics made a virtue HSS President Bernie Lightman of complexity by burying their insights under temptations are there to be resisted (especially mountains of impenetrable jargon. Whereas the when you have two overdue book projects writers I admired made complex subjects clear, so already underway).