Research Catalog

Title

William Crookes (1832-1919) and the commercialization of science / William H. Brock.

Author

Brock, W. H. (William Hodson)

Publication

Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxvii, 556 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

"Previous literature on William Crookes has tended to focus on his involvement with spiritualism and the occult, sometimes to the detriment of his many scientific achievements. This, the first biography of William Crookes, gives us the whole man: one of the most complex, public, and interesting figures in the history of science." "W. H. Brock guides us through the abundant catalogue of Crookes' accomplishments, placing his scientific activities in the context of the business of making a living from science - something that Crookes did principally as a science journalist and editor with his Chemical News, and by business enterprises ranging from water analysis, sewerage schemes, and goldmining to the design of electric light bulbs."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Science, technology, and culture, 1700-1945

Uniform Title

Science, technology, and culture, 1700-1945

Subject

• Crookes, William
• Crookes, William, 1832-1919
• Crookes, William, 1832-1919
• 1850-1900
• 1900-1910
• 1910-1920
• Commerce
• Entrepreneurship
• Chemistry
• Science
• Scientists > Great Britain > Biography
• Chemists > Great Britain > Biography
• Inventors > Great Britain > Biography
• United Kingdom

Genre/Form

• Biography
• Biographies
• Biographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [491]-541) and index.

Contents

A tailor's son -- Photographic chemist : the making of an editor -- Earning a living -- Thallium -- Carbolic and cattle plague -- Selling science, 1865-1875 -- Spiritualism -- Mysterious forces : investigating Mr Home -- Chemistry is strictly a science of precision -- The investigation of Florence Cook, 1872-1874 -- Scandal : the investigations of Annie Eva Fay and Rosina Showers -- The radiometer and its lessons : William Carpenter versus William Crookes -- Dark spaces and the fourth state of matter -- Ubi crux ibi lux : the business of electricity -- The commercialization of public health : water -- The commercialization of public health : adulteration, sewage and hygiene -- Radiant spectroscopy : the rare earths crusade -- Esoteric chemistry in the nineties -- Inert gases and transmutations -- The wheat problem -- Radioactivity -- Welsh gold and African diamonds -- The grand old man of chemical physics, 1907-1913 -- The final years, 1913-1919 -- The afterlife.

ISBN

• 9780754663225 (alk. paper)
• 0754663221 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2007025302

OCLC

• 144773496
• SCSB-9948938

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library