Forces of Nature: The Women who Changed Science

by Anna Reser, Leila McNeill

Overview

From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of Nature sets the record straight and charts the fascinating history of women’s discoveries in science.
 
In the ancient and medieval world, women served as royal physicians and nurses, taught mathematics, studied the stars, and practiced midwifery. As natural philosophers, physicists, anatomists, and botanists, they were central to the great intellectual flourishing of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. More recently women have been crucially involved in the Manhattan Project, pioneering space missions and much more. Despite their record of illustrious achievements, even today very few women win Nobel Prizes in science.
 
In this thoroughly researched, authoritative work, you will discover how women have navigated a male-dominated scientific culture – showing themselves to be pioneers and trailblazers, often without any recognition at all. Included in the book are the stories of:

• Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the earliest recorded female mathematicians
• Maria Cunitz who corrected errors in Kepler’s work
• Emmy Noether who discovered fundamental laws of physics
• Vera Rubin one of the most influential astronomers of the twentieth century
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell who helped discover pulsars

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780711248977
Publisher:	Frances Lincoln
Publication date:	05/25/2021
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,057,848
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Anna Reser is an American historian of science and technology. She holds a PhD in the history of science, technology, and medicine from the University of Oklahoma. She is the co-founder co-editor in chief  of Lady Science magazine, and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Real Life, StarTrek.com, Technology’s Stories and more.
 

Leila McNeill is an American writer, editor, and historian of science. She is an Affiliate Fellow in the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma and the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Lady Science magazine. She has been a columnist for Smithsonian.com and BBC Future, and she has been published by The Atlantic, The Baffler, JSTOR Daily, amongst others.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Reading Women’s Silence in the History of Science
Section I
Antiquity to the Middles Ages
Physicians, Midwives, and “Grannies”
The Supernatural and the Sanctified
Section II
The Renaissance & The Enlightenment
Women Calculate Their Own Path to Science
The Wives and Sisters of Scientific Partnerships
Women and the Science of the Body in the Scientific Revolution
Empire and Exploitation in the Age of Exploration
Section III
The Long Nineteenth Century
Women Science Writers and Popularizers
Botany for Ladies
From the Home to the Hospital
Home Physicians and Lady Doctors
Section IV
The Twentieth Century, Pre-World War II
“Powerful levers that move worlds!”
The Home as Laboratory
Women’s Reproductive Freedom and the Eugenics Movement
Women Archaeologists and Anthropologists Humanize their Past
What Cannot Be Unmade
Section V
Twentieth Century, Post-World War II
The Plight of Women Refugee Scientists
Coming to America
Nature’s Housekeepers Begin a Movement
The Double Bind in the Sciences
More than Astronauts
Reconfiguring the Female
The Problem with “Female Firsts”
Afterword
Other women to inspire
Index
Acknowledgments & Picture Credits
Endnotes
Bibliography
 

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/22/2021

This expansive history from Reser and McNeill, historians and coeditors of Lady Science magazine, sheds light on women’s contributions to science throughout history. For women, they note, participating in science “was a constant clawing at the edges of spaces where they were not permitted,” and the authors survey how women have shaped scientific discovery in ways not captured by traditional historical archives. Starting in antiquity, the authors capture women whose discoveries have been overlooked: women practiced medicine in ancient China, for example, but only men wrote about it and considered women’s practices outdated. The 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meanwhile, proposed a cosmological model of the universe that was only taken seriously because she was believed to have “divine vision” and to be “speaking for God.” Maria Cunitz, a 17th-century mathematician and astronomer, is responsible for “the earliest surviving work of science written by a woman,” and Elizabeth Elmy “enlisted botany in her feminist cause” in 1895. The authors cover an impressive amount of ground, and the condensed profiles peppered throughout keep things moving. Full of eye-opening information, this unique perspective on women’s history will enthrall history buffs, science enthusiasts, and feminists. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Full of eye-opening information, this unique perspective on women’s history will enthrall history buffs, science enthusiasts, and feminists."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Moving from the ancient world to the modern era, Anna Reser and Leila McNeill's Forces of Nature examines women's unsung contributions to various scientific fields."—Lauren Sharkey and K.W. Colyard, Bustle

"...the scientists in this lively book inspire and fascinate."—CARLA DELGADO, Mental Floss

"This volume brings to light the contributions of a multitude of women in science over millennia."—Albuquerque Journal

From the Publisher