pursue conventionally described science. Ex- amples of the cyanide process for gold ex- traction and of uses of microbiology link the scientific work to particular economic, geo- graphical, and demographic characteristics of the southern continent. By the 1880s Australian scientists produced results that were recognized abroad and gained institu- tional and public support at home. A some- what similar case is made for technology by George Bindon and David Philip Miller. Their paper "Sweetness and light" discusses the ways in which the Colonial Sugar Refin- ing Company, using experienced chemists from Scotland and Germany, adapted mill- ing and refining processes to Australian conditions. In this instance, experts estab- lished technical control over floor control, which the authors argue represents one evi- dence of an industrial research orientation. The third and last section, entitled Pas- sage to Modernity, moves toward and em- phasizes science since the 1940s, with the exception of the paper by H. Hamersley on the Sydney Cancer Research Committee in the 1920s. Home describes the rapid ad- vancement of the physical sciences, and the simultaneous shift away from agriculture, during World War II. Australians were brought into British work on radar and established facilities that could be used after the war as well. Woodruff T. Sullivan's excellent essay on Australian radio astrono- my documents the value of Australian work as well as the problems facing those who tried to collaborate with scientists on the other side of the world. Sullivan also points out the difficulties faced by women, such as Ruby Payne-Scott, who had to keep her marriage a secret from 1944 to 1950 be- cause the Commonwealth Scientific and In- dustrial Research Organization forbade married women on permanent staff. S. C. B. Gascoigne documents in detail the way post- war astronomy benefited from the equip- ment, staff, and facilities that, in turn, al- lowed Australians to take advantage of their location in the Southern Hemisphere and collaborate with scientists elsewhere in the world. According to Ron Johnston and Jean Buckley, in the period since 1945 sponsor- ship by government agencies has undergird- ed unprecedented growth and status for science. The price for that support has been a process more bureaucratized and, increas- ingly in recent years, politicized as well. Geographical location influenced the work of plant and medical scientists just as it had the research of some astronomers. R. L. Burt and W. T. Williams review the extraor- dinary problems and possibilities opened by the acclimatization of plants on their long- isolated continent and observe with regret how slowly (only since the 1930s) botanists 7 OCTOBER I988 have been able to gain reasonable oversight of plant imports and exports. The in many ways unique environment provided unusual opportunities in the medical sciences as well. F. C. Courtice argues that the scientists who earned international recognition were often those who concentrated on indigenous spe- cies or local problems and could thus pro- duce results distinct from those of foreign scientists. His examples include Charles James Martin, whose work on snake venom led to antitoxins, to an international reputa- tion for the young Sydney physiologist, and to subsequent research on the toxic compo- nents of venoms at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. Taken together, these essays reflect the range and level of current work on the history of biological and physical sciences in Australia. Historians are still mapping ter- rain and prominent features. No one here, for example, explores in any detail the perva- sive and persistent public concern for the resources and ecology of the continent, the role of women and amateurs in a population at once highly urbanized yet widely dis- persed, and the impact of the difficult transi- tion years after federation in 1901. Like the United States a century earlier, Australians have sought independence from British and European (and recently even American) dominance, an effort seemingly at odds with the simultaneous goal of acceptance as equals by foreign colleagues. In these essays we discover the paradox that Australian scien- tists have often gained independent recogni- tion at precisely the moment they merge into an international network. SALLY GREGORY KOHLSTEDT Department of History, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13210 An Intemationalist Focus Nature In Its Greatest Extent. Western Science in the Pacific. Roy MAcLEOD and PHILIP F. REHBOCK, Eds. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, HI, 1988. xiv, 288 pp., illus. $43. From a symposium, Berkeley, CA, 1985. The social history of scientific develop- ment has typically taken the nation as its focus. But this volume reawakens us to other historiographical possibilities: the in- teraction of nations in the exploration, sci- entific development, and exploitation of a major geographical region. Elegant surveys by 0. H. K. Spate and Alan Frost capture well the early European fascination with the Pacific, its peoples, and the harnessing of science to political and economic designs. Miranda Hughes's sensitive and witty ac- count of the Baudin expedition (1800- 1804) analyzes the ways in which the as- sumptions of European philosophy and anthropology manifested themselves in Bau- "Giving Hawaii the Scientific Once Over," newspaper cartoon, 29 August 1920." [From P. F. Rehbock, "Organizing Pacific science," in Nature in Its Greatest Extent; courtesy of Bishop Museum, Pacific Science Congress Scrapbook] BOOK REVIEWS 1I9 on November 18, 2015 www.sciencemag.org Downloaded from on November 18, 2015 www.sciencemag.org Downloaded from on November 18, 2015 www.sciencemag.org Downloaded from