Working Knowledge
A Simon Schaffer Reader
Will be published approx. on 16. February 2026
Book
Hardback
672 pages
978-0-226-83177-0 (ISBN)
Description
Collects key articles by Simon Schaffer, one of the most important historians of science working today.
Working Knowledge is the first English-language collection of essays by Simon Schaffer, coauthor of Leviathan and the Air-Pump, a landmark text in the history of science. Though the latter may be his most famous book, Schaffer is also renowned for seminal articles on Isaac Newton and the cultures of popular spectacle, nineteenth-century physics and its practices of labor discipline and standardization, the history of anthropology and collecting, and the globe-spanning cultural interactions that have shaped modern science. Working Knowledge compiles these well-known pieces alongside newer selections, making them accessible in a single place and representing the huge scope and impact of Schaffer's oeuvre.
The Reader divides sixteen of Schaffer's articles across five thematic sections, which take up timely issues like the turn toward global histories of science; the intersection of science and capitalism; the interaction between bodies and machines; and the connection between science, politics, and the environment. Eight new essays by notable historians such as Adrian Johns, Lissa Roberts, and Steven Shapin bring Schaffer's pieces into discussion with current scholarship. Illustrations and brief commentaries by Schaffer and the artist Adam Lowe, a longtime collaborator, are included throughout the volume.
Bringing together essential articles that were previously scattered across several publications, Working Knowledge is an insightful introduction to Schaffer and his ever-relevant writing.
Working Knowledge is the first English-language collection of essays by Simon Schaffer, coauthor of Leviathan and the Air-Pump, a landmark text in the history of science. Though the latter may be his most famous book, Schaffer is also renowned for seminal articles on Isaac Newton and the cultures of popular spectacle, nineteenth-century physics and its practices of labor discipline and standardization, the history of anthropology and collecting, and the globe-spanning cultural interactions that have shaped modern science. Working Knowledge compiles these well-known pieces alongside newer selections, making them accessible in a single place and representing the huge scope and impact of Schaffer's oeuvre.
The Reader divides sixteen of Schaffer's articles across five thematic sections, which take up timely issues like the turn toward global histories of science; the intersection of science and capitalism; the interaction between bodies and machines; and the connection between science, politics, and the environment. Eight new essays by notable historians such as Adrian Johns, Lissa Roberts, and Steven Shapin bring Schaffer's pieces into discussion with current scholarship. Illustrations and brief commentaries by Schaffer and the artist Adam Lowe, a longtime collaborator, are included throughout the volume.
Bringing together essential articles that were previously scattered across several publications, Working Knowledge is an insightful introduction to Schaffer and his ever-relevant writing.
Reviews / Votes
"If you were looking for a guide to the most influential work in the history of science in the past forty years, written by one of its most brilliant and original thinkers, this expertly edited volume of Schaffer's collected essays should be top of your list. Even on second or third reading, every essay is still powerful and provocative-a master class in how to rethink a whole discipline." -- Lorraine Daston, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science "Schaffer writes history as if ideas have gravity, drawing institutions, instruments, and empires into converging orbits. His scholarship reveals not only how science operates and is performed, but how it travels across oceans, through social orders, and between minds. With a gift for uncovering the improbable connections between seemingly minor details and vast intellectual structures, Schaffer transforms footnotes into revelations. Framed by illuminating introductions from leading historians of science, Working Knowledge foregrounds Schaffer's rare capacity to elucidate the material and conceptual architecture of science in ways that are both vivid and broadly accessible." -- Jean-Francois Gauvin, Universite LavalMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
53 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-83177-0 (9780226831770)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Simon Schaffer, fellow of the British Academy and professor of history and philosophy of Science at Cambridge University since 1985, is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books, among them, with Steven Shapin, the classic Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Boyle, Hobbes, and the Experimental Life. Schaffer's work has been awarded the Erasmus Prize, the George Sarton Medal from the History of Science Society, the Dan David Prize, the Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum, and the Paul Bunge Award from the German Chemical Society. Charlotte Bigg is a research fellow at the Centre Alexandre Koyre and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. John Tresch is professor in the history of art, science, and folk practice at The Warburg Institute at the University of London. Simon Werrett is professor of the history of science at the University College London.
Content
Editors' Preface, by Charlotte Bigg, John Tresch, and Simon Werrett
Part 1. Opening
In Conversation: Simon Schaffer and the Politics of Intellectual Inquiry, by Lissa Roberts
Part 2. Performance
Science Performed: The Priestley Principle, by Frederique Ait-Touati and Adrian Johns
Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century
Glass Works: Newton's Prisms and the Uses of Experiment
Easily Cracked: Scientific Instruments in States of Disrepair
Part 3. Capitalism
Opening Marxism's Black Box, by Jenny Bulstrode, Myles W. Jackson, Daniel Margocsy, and Kapil Raj
Newton at the Crossroads
Late Victorian Metrology and Its Instrumentation: A Manufactory of Ohms
Golden Means: Assay Instruments and the Geography of Precision in the Guinea Trade
Instruments as Cargo in the China Trade
Part 4. Bodies/Machines
Where Bodies Meet Machines, by Iwan Rhys Morus and H. Otto Sibum
Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation
Self Evidence
Enlightened Automata
Part 5. Cosmology
Cosmology as Science and Culture, by Jan Golinski, Stephane Van Damme, Michael Bravo, and Lauren Kassell
Herschel in Bedlam: Natural History and Stellar Astronomy
Newton on the Beach: The Information Order of Principia Mathematica
The World as Animal
Part 6. Travel
The Reflexive Encounter Between Metrology and Orientalism, by James Delbourgo, Samaa Elimam, Rohan Deb Roy, and Richard Staley
From Physics to Anthropology and Back Again
The Asiatic Enlightenments of British Astronomy
Oriental Metrology and the Politics of Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Survey Sciences
Part 7. Conclusion
Taking the Measure, by Steven Shapin
Archives Consulted
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Part 1. Opening
In Conversation: Simon Schaffer and the Politics of Intellectual Inquiry, by Lissa Roberts
Part 2. Performance
Science Performed: The Priestley Principle, by Frederique Ait-Touati and Adrian Johns
Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century
Glass Works: Newton's Prisms and the Uses of Experiment
Easily Cracked: Scientific Instruments in States of Disrepair
Part 3. Capitalism
Opening Marxism's Black Box, by Jenny Bulstrode, Myles W. Jackson, Daniel Margocsy, and Kapil Raj
Newton at the Crossroads
Late Victorian Metrology and Its Instrumentation: A Manufactory of Ohms
Golden Means: Assay Instruments and the Geography of Precision in the Guinea Trade
Instruments as Cargo in the China Trade
Part 4. Bodies/Machines
Where Bodies Meet Machines, by Iwan Rhys Morus and H. Otto Sibum
Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation
Self Evidence
Enlightened Automata
Part 5. Cosmology
Cosmology as Science and Culture, by Jan Golinski, Stephane Van Damme, Michael Bravo, and Lauren Kassell
Herschel in Bedlam: Natural History and Stellar Astronomy
Newton on the Beach: The Information Order of Principia Mathematica
The World as Animal
Part 6. Travel
The Reflexive Encounter Between Metrology and Orientalism, by James Delbourgo, Samaa Elimam, Rohan Deb Roy, and Richard Staley
From Physics to Anthropology and Back Again
The Asiatic Enlightenments of British Astronomy
Oriental Metrology and the Politics of Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Survey Sciences
Part 7. Conclusion
Taking the Measure, by Steven Shapin
Archives Consulted
Bibliography
Contributors
Index