The earth sciences. An annotated bibliography

ROY S. PORTER, The earth sciences. An annotated bibliography, New York and London, Garland Publishing, 1983, 8vo, pp. xix, 192, illus., $37.00. This handsome volume offers 808 secondary bibliographical references on the history of the earth sciences. It is the third volume in the series Bibliographies ofthe history ofscience and technology, edited by Robert Multhauf and Ellen Wells. Porter's bibliography of the history of geology follows hot on the trail of the more comprehensive one by W. A. S. Sarjeant, Geologists and the history ofgeology (5 vols., New York, Arno Press; London, Macmillan, 1980, pp. 4526). The entries are intelligently subdivided into ten categories which range from 'Bibliography and reference works' to 'Geology, culture and the arts'. The two groups 'Specialist histories' and 'Cognate sciences' have each been extensively further subdivided. This volume has two particularly welcome features. First, each entry has been summarized in the form of a very useful analytical and descriptive comment. Second, an introduction has been added which gives a concise history of geological historiography. Porter argues that the history of geology has been revitalized during the past few decades mainly because it has become distanced from the science of geology. As a result we have experienced a "decline of canonizing and anathematizing history", and a corresponding rise of a more historical and socially focused approach. The majority of the titles are from the Anglo-American literature, but titles in French, German, Latin, Italian, and Spanish have been included. The selection of foreign-language titles, however, is somewhat uneven. The Germans, in particular, have done better than would appear from this bibliography. Entries that this reviewer should like to see added range from Wolf von Engelhardt's recent work on Goethe's geology to the classic bibliography by C. C. Leonhard, J. H. Kopp, and C. L. Gaertner, Propaedeutik der Mineralogie (Frankfurt am Main, J. C. Hermann, 1817), which contained no fewer than 2740 references on geology and its history. Nicholas Rupke Wellcome Institute