Russian physicians in an era of reform and revolution: 1856–1905

The volume is limited, reasonably enough, to the early Buffon and to the critical writings he provoked. And the main aim is to place the early Buffon in his context. But, of course, any future efforts to reinterpret Buffon's career and his Histoire as a whole will be aided by this view of the man and his magnum opus. The translations by Lyon and Sloan quite rightly put accuracy before stylistic appeal. Buffon himself often sacrificed precision of argument for fluency of prose, and it would only have compounded the difficulty raised by that tendency were his translators to have done likewise. Altogether, then, the book is a very welcome addition to the Buffon literature. One can only hope although the editors are silent on this that there may be a sequel to it covering the rest of Buffon's long life and extensive writings. Meanwhile, readers may like to know of a much briefer collection in translation that appeared too recently to be noticed by Lyon and Sloan. It is called Buffon's Natural history (Open University Press); it forms Units 17-18 of the Open University course on the Enlightenment and is prepared by David Goodman. M. J. S. Hodge Division of History and Philosophy of Science University of Leeds