“Beautifully Written and Elegantly Composed. . . . Outstanding” — ISIS

A very nice review of The Philosophical Breakfast Club just appeared in ISIS, the journal of the History of Science Society:

“The Philosophical Breakfast Club is a beautifully written and elegantly composed story. . . . [The book] presents a wonderful portrait of science and university life in the period—the trials and tribulations of trying to be a scientist before professionalization.  It nicely evokes the broad interdisciplinary that was taken for granted then and is so rare now.  Its contextualization of the first half of the nineteenth century in Britain is outstanding, and it is highly successful in showing the deep intertwining of culture and society with the club members’ work. . . .

“This book will be extremely useful for teaching, students, and interested laypeople.  It would be an excellent text for a survey of modern science, a science and society class, or even a course on the history of Britain. . . .”