Chemistry is intimately involved in the development of the oldest known civilizations, resulting in a range of chemical technologies that not only continue to be part of modern civilized societies, but are so commonplace that it would be hard to imagine life without them. Such chemical technology has a very long and rich history, in some cases dating back to as early as 20,000 BCE. Chemistry Technology in Antiquity aims to present the discovery, development, and early history of a range of such chemical technologies, with the added goal of including a number of smaller subjects often ignored in the presentation of early chemical technology. While the book does not aim to be a comprehensive coverage of the full range of chemical technologies practiced during antiquity, it provides a feel and appreciation for both the deep history involved with these topics, as well as the complexity of the chemical processes that were being utilized at such a very early time period.

Eugenic thought and practice swept the world from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in a remarkable transnational phenomenon that informed social and scientific policy across the political spectrum, from liberal welfare measures in emerging social-democratic states, to feminist ambitions for birth control, to public health campaigns, to totalitarian dreams of the "perfectibility of man." This book dispels for uninitiated readers the automatic and apparently exclusive link between eugenics and the Holocaust: the popularity of eugenics in Japan, for example, comes as a surprise. It is the first world history of eugenics and an indispensable core text for both teaching and research in what has become a sprawling but ever more important field. Eugenics has accumulated generations of interest as part of the question of how experts think about the connections between biology, human capacity and policy. In the past and the present, eugenics speaks to questions of race, class, gender and sex, evolution, governance, nationalism, disability, and the social implications of science. In the current climate, where the human genome project, stem cell research, and new reproductive technologies have proven so controversial, the history of eugenics has much to teach us about the relationship between scientific research, technology, and human ethical decision-making. This volume offers both a nineteenth-century context for understanding the emergence of eugenics and a consideration of contemporary manifestations of, and relationships to eugenics. It is the definitive text for students and researchers to consult for careful and up-to-date summaries, new substantive fields where very little work is currently available (e.g. eugenics in Iran, South Africa, and South East Asia); transnational thematic lines of inquiry; the integration of literature on colonialism; and connections to contemporary issues.

This Handbook explores the history of mathematics under a series of themes which raise new questions about what mathematics has been and what it has meant to practice it. It addresses questions of who creates mathematics, who uses it, and how. A broader understanding of mathematical practitioners naturally leads to a new appreciation of what counts as a historical source. Material and oral evidence is drawn upon as well as an unusual array of textual sources. Further, the ways in which people have chosen to express themselves are as historically meaningful as the contents of the mathematics they have produced. Mathematics is not a fixed and unchanging entity. New questions, contexts, and applications all influence what counts as productive ways of thinking. Because the history of mathematics should interact constructively with other ways of studying the past, the contributors to this book come from a diverse range of intellectual backgrounds in anthropology, archaeology, art history, philosophy, and literature, as well as history of mathematics more traditionally understood.
The thirty-six self-contained, multifaceted chapters, each written by a specialist, are arranged under three main headings: 'Geographies and Cultures', 'Peoples and Practices', and 'Interactions and Interpretations'. Together they deal with the mathematics of 5000 years, but without privileging the past three centuries, and an impressive range of periods and places with many points of cross-reference between chapters. The key mathematical cultures of North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, and China are all represented here as well as areas which are not often treated in mainstream history of mathematics, such as Russia, the Balkans, Vietnam, and South America. This Handbook will be a vital reference for graduates and researchers in mathematics, historians of science, and general historians.