Table of Contents

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsCh. 1Instruments and Images: Subjects for the Historiography of Science3Ch. 2Athanasius Kircher's Sunflower Clock14Ch. 3The Magic Lantern and the Art of Demonstration37Ch. 4The Ocular Harpsichord of Louis-Bertrand Castel; or, The Instrument That Wasn't72Ch. 5The Aeolian Harp and the Romantic Quest of Nature86Ch. 6Science since Babel: Graphs, Automatic Recording Devices, and the Universal Language of Instruments113Ch. 7The Giant Eyes of Science: The Stereoscope and Photographic Depiction in the Nineteenth Century148Ch. 8Vox Mechanica: The History of Speaking Machines178Ch. 9Conclusion221Notes233Bibliography287Index325

Reviews

"[A] surprising and instructive book... A salutary perspective on a tale that is usually told very differently."--A. C. Grayling, Financial Times "Hankins and Silverman illuminate not only the tools of science, but the changing character of the enterprise itself."--Stephen Johnston, New Scientist "This imaginative and intellectually stimulating book reminds us that artifacts have an intellectual context, as well as a social one, and that a thick vein of the irrational runs through all of technology."--George Basalla, Technology and Culture "Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman provide a welcome contribution... Their avowed intention ... [is] to look at instruments on the margins ... to show the significance of such instruments to the history of science. By making instruments a starting point for historical inquiry, [they] illuminate not only the tools of science, but the changing character of the enterprise itself."--Stephen Johnston, New Scientist