In the beginning, there was Dava Sobel and Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (1998). Others followed, in a veritable flood which D. P. Miller recently dubbed the ‘Sobel Effect’. Academic historians of science have been concerned by this flood, partly because people other than them are (presumably) making money out of ‘their’ subject, but also because of the ways it might affect the public perception of the history of science. Like the scientists they study, historians fear that popularizers will distort in the process of simplifying. But, knowing how difficult it has been for scientists to control the popularization of their subject, historians may not expect a great deal more success.

The Marxist history of science has played an enormous role in the development of the history of science. Whether through the appreciation of its insights or the construction of a political fortress to prevent infusion, its presence is felt. From 1931 the work of Marxists played an integral part in the international development of the history of science, though rarely have the connections between them or their own biographies been explored. These networks convey a distinct history, alongside political, methodological and personal implications, impressing on us a greater understanding of the possibilities that were present and were lost in the most turbulent of decades. Two of the most notable were Boris Hessen, a founder of Marxist history of science, and J. G. Crowther, one of its most prolific exponents. My examination explores aspects of the dialogue between these controversial figures, starting with brief biographical sketches. Their lives became briefly entwined following the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology in 1931, demonstrated with reference to the meeting and the correspondence between them until Hessen's death. In doing so, some new facts and old controversies surface, though most importantly the nature of the correspondence carries implications for the Marxist history of science and for the wider movement of which it is part. The Russian delegation to the congress declared that science was at a crossroads. The history of science was at a similar crossroads in the 1930s.

This paper focuses on the defection of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo from Britain to the USSR in 1950 in an attempt to understand how government and intelligence services assess threats deriving from the unwanted spread of secret scientific information. It questions whether contingent agendas play a role in these assessments, as new evidence suggests that this is exactly what happened in the Pontecorvo case. British diplomatic personnel involved in negotiations with their US counterparts considered playing down the case. Meanwhile, the press decided to play it up, claiming that Pontecorvo was an atom spy. Finally, the British secret services had evidence showing that this was a fabrication, but they did not disclose it. If all these manipulations served various purposes, then they certainly were not aimed at assessing if there was a threat and what this threat really was.

Between 1867 and 1869 Michel Chasles presented a series of manuscripts to the Académie des sciences, which suggested that Isaac Newton's claims to original discovery were unfounded. It quickly became apparent to the majority of the academicians that the manuscripts were forgeries, but Chasles was repeatedly allowed to state his case. This essay focuses on the responses to the affair from four British men of science: David Brewster, Augustus De Morgan, Robert Grant and Thomas Archer Hirst. It asks why they felt it necessary to add their voices to this debate and examines their various strategies for refuting Chasles's evidence.

This article examines the science of electrophysiology developed by Emil du Bois-Reymond in Berlin in the 1840s. In it I recount his major findings, the most significant being his proof of the electrical nature of nerve signals. Du Bois-Reymond also went on to detect this same ‘negative variation’, or action current, in live human subjects. In 1850 he travelled to Paris to defend this startling claim. The essay concludes with a discussion of why his demonstration failed to convince his hosts at the French Academy of Sciences.

La science ne consiste pas en faits, mais dans les conséquences que l'on en tire.Claude Bernard, Introduction à l'étude de la médicine expérimentale

Good talkers are only found in Paris.François Villon, Des Femmes de Paris