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Newtonian philosophy in France in the 1730s Terrall conveys masterfully how this man, and 1740s. who wanted desperately to belong, chose a Maupertuis is known to students of history of course that made him the preeminent outsider. science primarily for his role in determining the His tenure as president of the Berlin Academy shape of the earth. Readers find in this highly of Science pleased neither the Germans nor the readable volume a complete account of Mauper- French, yet in some ways it expressed well his tuis’s involvement in this fascinating episode, fundamental ambiguity as a man in search of an which exposes both his command of technical identity. challenges and the darker side of his ambition. Terrall’s study is based on an exhaustive Maupertuis promoted himself as the man who scrutiny of European archives. She has left no flattened the earth, but the clash with the Cassini stone unturned in her pursuit of the primary and family about the shape of the globe did not ex- secondary materials that shed light on Mauper- haust his scientific achievement. Yet whatever tuis’s life and work and on his public and pri- Maupertuis touched appeared to elicit contro- vate sociability during an important formative versy, from the articulation of his beloved prin- period of eighteenth-century science. For her ciple of least action to his original and creative impressive achievement we stand deeply in her treatment of organic molecules and heredity, debt. It is in that spirit that the committee is tinged as it was with the ghosts of both Leibniz proud to award the 2003 Pfizer Prize to Mary and Spinoza. Terrall.

DEREK PRICE/ROD WEBSTER PRIZE

Presented by Jon M. Harkness at the Annual rine biology by focusing on a true pioneer in Meeting of the History of Science Society, 22 the discipline. For example, Tseng was among November 2003: the first scientists in the world to carry out un- On behalf of my fellow committee members, derwater research, using hard-hat diving equip- Emily Thompson and Judy Grabiner, I am ment during the early 1940s while a visiting pleased to announce that we have chosen to researcher at the Scripps Institution of Ocean- award the 2003 Derek Price/Rod Webster Prize ography in San Diego. Tseng had come to the for the best article published in Isis during the United States in 1940 to do doctoral work at the past three years to Peter Neushul and Zuoyue University of Michigan; when he completed his Wang for their coauthored piece “Between the degree in the spring of 1942, wartime travel re- Devil and the Deep Sea: C. K. Tseng, Maricul- strictions would delay his return home for sev- ture, and the Politics of Science in Modern eral years. Tseng’s scientific sojourn in the China,” which appeared in the March 2000 issue States provides Neushul and Wang with an op- of our journal. portunity for a deft analysis of the relationship Biography has, at best, a mixed reputation between Chinese and American science—and among professional historians. However, Neu- scientists—during the twentieth century. Tseng shul and Wang demonstrate that the genre can placed particular emphasis in his work on in- be an especially effective means for achieving tegrating basic and applied research, with grand the combination of narrative drama, historical aspirations for feeding millions through what he importance, and historiographic sophistication called “agriculture in the sea.” Neushul and that characterizes our finest work. They also Wang adroitly explore the vast—and still have been astute in their choice of biographical largely untapped—practical potential of ocean subject: to follow C. K. Tseng’s life is to watch farming. Along the way, they provide useful in- a scientist traverse the twisting—sometimes sights on the interplay between science and treacherous—trail of twentieth-century Chinese technology. And the authors offer important history. During the Cultural Revolution of the commentary on, as they put it, “the social con- late 1960s, for instance, we see Red Guards im- struction of science within the Maoist totalitar- prison and torture Tseng as a “reactionary aca- ian regime,” comparing the Chinese experience demic authority.” Then, we watch as Tseng is with science as practiced in the Soviet Union forced to serve for a time as a janitor at the and Nazi Germany. They argue—convinc- Institute of Oceanology he had previously di- ingly—that “science and technology can be rected for two decades. The essay also serves socially constructed, but only to a certain de- as a seminal contribution to the history of ma- gree.” NEWS OF THE PROFESSION—ISIS, 95 : 2 (2004) 267

Neushul and Wang have fashioned their article student in the 1950s, read Tseng’s work as trans- from a copious supply of telling details gathered lated from Russian by Peter’s grandfather, a Rus- from numerous interviews (including two with sian immigrant). Neushul and Wang’s prose goes Tseng himself) and far-flung archives. And their beyond clarity to achieve elegance and eloquence. footnotes are a model of the form: they carefully And, finally, the illustrations they have found to describe their primary sources, they clearly expli- accompany the piece are actually illustrative— cate relevant secondary literature, they give oc- and visually alluring. casional primers for readers who might be shaky We are, indeed, proud to present the Derek on the basics of Chinese history (in one note, for Price/Rod Webster Prize to Peter Neushul and instance, they provide the essentials of the Boxer Zuoyue Wang for their article “Between the Rebellion in four quick sentences), and they offer Devil and the Deep Sea: C. K. Tseng, Maricul- a few entertaining asides (in another note, we ture, and the Politics of Science in Modern learn that Peter Neushul’s father, as a Scripps grad China,” from the March 2000 issue of Isis.

HENRY AND IDA SCHUMAN PRIZE

The Henry and Ida Schuman Prize is awarded above all—the original Hebrew version of the this year to Avner Ben-Zaken of UCLA for his book of Job. But why was this text so important? essay “Hebraist Motives, Pythagorean Itinerar- Ben-Zaken’s answer brings us back to Italy and ies, and the Galilean Agenda of Naples: On the to a group of radical Neapolitan Galileans. Della Margins of Text and Context.” Valle’s quest for the lost book of Job, Ben-Zaken Ben-Zaken’s essay begins with a text—a suggests, had a very specific purpose in recon- rather curious one—an account of the Tychonic ciling Scripture with the Pythagorean cosmol- system translated into Persian by a young Italian ogy. Thus, to understand the fuller context of the scholar. Della Valle, who was on a nine-year struggle over Copernicanism we find that we journey in the Near East, had been sent by a pa- must look east, to the lure of the lost wisdom of tron to collect ancient books and manuscripts. the ancients. His travels took him to Istanbul, Egypt, Babylon, Avner Ben-Zaken’s essay links together an im- Persia, and finally India, following in the foot- pressive variety of texts and people from various steps of an ancient predecessor, Pythagoras. religious, cultural, and linguistic traditions. He Della Valle began his journey in 1612 and was skillfully and imaginatively moves back and forth probably instructed along the way, Ben-Zaken from text to context to shed light on the world of argues, to search for one particular manuscript early seventeenth-century natural philosophy.

SARTON MEDAL

The Sarton Medal is the most prestigious award from learned medicine to the daily practices of of the History of Science Society. It honors a physicians and barber-surgeons, from medieval lifetime of scholarly achievement and is awarded universities to Renaissance court patronage, each year to a historian of science of outstanding from her very first publication on Pietro merit selected from the international scholarly d’Abano’s commentary on the Problems of Ar- community. I am honored and delighted to have istotle, ca. 1300 (Isis [1970]), to her work in been asked by HSS President John Servos to in- progress on the interrelations between natural troduce this year’s Sarton Medalist. She is history and human history circa 1600. Via the Nancy G. Siraisi, Distinguished Professor Emer- music of the pulse, the art of narrative, and the ita in the Department of History at Hunter Col- practice of anatomy, to mention only a few of lege, City University of New York. the highlights along the way. Professor Siraisi has devoted her long and ex- When I was going through the Princeton pro- ceptionally productive career to the history of gram and had the great good fortune of getting science and medicine of the Middle Ages and to know Nancy while she was there, we were the Renaissance, with a special focus on Italy. enjoined to work beyond the internalist/exter- Her six books, four edited volumes, and fifty ar- nalist distinction. Even better than working be- ticles embrace a tremendous range of topics, yond the distinction, Nancy Siraisi works with-