The Nicolai case. A biography

xix). Despite a tendency to interpretative ad hoc-ism, it does bring together the important monographic work (e.g. Bynum, Searle, Stocking, Young) that has been done, and in some instances offers perceptive independent readings of particular figures. One might quarrel with the decision to focus on the natural sciences in isolation from the social (and the failure adequately to appreciate the way in which Lamarckian assumption linked the two archetypically in the work of Herbert Spencer, who is cited only three times), but, for the most part, the argument seems unexceptionable. While it climbs no interpretative heights, many readers may find this a "useful" book. George Stocking University of Chicago