Reference Reviews

Lawrence Looks at Books

New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Noretta Koertge. 8 vols. 3,332 p. Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 978-0-684-31320-7; 2007-31384. $ 995.

New Dictionary of Scientific Biography The 787 articles of this biographical dictionary are completely new in content and serve to update the original Dictionary of Scientific Biography (Scribner's, 1970-1990) and its supplements. Whereas the original provided a scholarly survey of the lives of over 5,000 mathematicians and scientists from all regions and periods, the focus of this supplement is on approximately 500 scientists who have died since 1980. New biographies include Kenneth Bainbridge, Dian Fossey, Stephen Jay Gould, Mary Leaky, John Pople, Carl Sagan and Edward Teller. A small number of entries feature scientists overlooked in the compilation of the base set, including African American astronomer Benjamin Banneker and Europe's first female university professor Laura Bassi Verati. From Archimedes, Galen and Tycho Brahe to Charles Babbage, Albert Einstein and Wernher von Braun, over 200 articles review new scholarship on historical figures that appeared in the base set or its supplements. Both the updates and new entries include up to date bibliographies. The index and a list of scientists by discipline allow the user to approach the subjects by fields of endeavor. Under the title of the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, a new electronic edition will include the content of all editions in a single source. Regardless of format, this update maintains the high quality of the original and keeps an outstanding resource current and useful for a new generation of users.

— John Lawrence