Diction and Dictionaries in the Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge: an Aspect of the History of the Popularization of Science in Great Britain

1965 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Layton
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Popularization Of Science ◽  
Present Context ◽  
History Of

The concept of popularization, in the present context, implies the existence of a reading public interested in science, together with a corpus of scientific knowledge, part of which, in its range and complexity, was outside the limits of the general understanding.

scholarly journals Weathering the empire: meteorological research in the early British straits settlements

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
FIONA WILLIAMSON
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Early History ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
British Government ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Government Investment ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article explores meteorological interest and experimentation in the early history of the Straits Settlements. It centres on the establishment of an observatory in 1840s Singapore and examines the channels that linked the observatory to a global community of scientists, colonial officers and a reading public. It will argue that, although the value of overseas meteorological investigation was recognized by the British government, investment was piecemeal and progress in the field often relied on the commitment and enthusiasm of individuals. In the Straits Settlements, as elsewhere, these individuals were drawn from military or medical backgrounds, rather than trained as dedicated scientists. Despite this, meteorology was increasingly recognized as of fundamental importance to imperial interests. Thus this article connects meteorology with the history of science and empire more fully and examines how research undertaken in British dependencies is revealing of the operation of transnational networks in the exchange of scientific knowledge.

Working-Class Fictions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Industrial Community ◽  
Working People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Exciting Wave

This chapter explores why working-class fictions flourished in the period from the late 1950s through to the early 1970s and the distinctive contributions that they made to the post-war British and Irish novel. These writers of working-class fiction were celebrated for their bold, socially realistic, and often candid depictions of the lives and desires of ordinary working people. Their works were seen to herald a new and exciting wave of gritty social realism. The narrative focus on the individual signalled a shift in the history of working-class writing away from the plot staples of strikes and the industrial community, striking a chord with a post-war reading public keen to see ordinary lives represented in books in a complex and realistic manner. The cultural significance of such novels was enhanced as they were adapted in quick succession for a mass cinema audience by a group of radical film-makers.

The History of ‘the Reading Public’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Collini
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Reading Matter ◽  
History Of ◽  
Victorian Periodicals

This chapter argues that accounts of ‘the reading public’ are always fundamentally historical, usually involving stories of ‘growth’ or ‘decline’. It examines Q. D. Leavis’s Fiction and the Reading Public, which builds a relentlessly pessimistic critique of the debased standards of the present out of a highly selective account of literature and its publics since the Elizabethan period. It goes on to exhibit the complicated analysis of the role of previous publics in F. R. Leavis’s revisionist literary history, including his ambivalent admiration for the great Victorian periodicals. And it shows how Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy carries an almost buried interpretation of social change from the nineteenth century onwards, constantly contrasting the vibrant and healthy forms of entertainment built up in old working-class communities with the slick, commercialized reading matter introduced by post-1945 prosperity.

I. Contributions Towards a History of British Meteorites

1879 ◽  
Vol 3 (13) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Townshend M. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Great Degree ◽  
Tangible Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mineral Constituents

As the rare descent of Meteorites or Aërolites affords us the only real tangible evidence we possess respecting the mineral constituents which exist beyond the limits of our own globe, a great degree of interest must always be attached to these stray visitors ; and although much has been written on the subject at different times, it has hitherto taken the form either of a bare catalogue of the date and place of occurrence ; or of scattered notices dealing only with individual cases. My desire is to collect these various records as far as they relate to each meteoric stone which has been known, or has been said to have fallen in Great Britain, and to endeavour to give as complete an account as possible of every instance; including not only the historical facts, but also notices Of mineralogical observations and references to authorities.

scholarly journals I.—History of the Names Cambrian and Silurian in Geology

1873 ◽  
Vol 10 (111) ◽  
pp. 385-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Sterry Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Upper Cambrian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
The Subject

It is proposed in the following pages to give a concise account of the progress of investigation of the lower Palæozoic rocks during the last forty years. The subject may naturally be divided into three parts: 1. The history of Silurian and Upper Cambrian in Great Britain from 1831 to 1854; 2. That of the still more ancient Palæozoic rocks in Scandinavia, Bohemia, and Great Britain up to the present time, including the recognition by Barrande of the so-called primordial Palæozoic; fauna; 3. The history of the lower Palæozoic rocks of North America.

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