Jim Endersby: historian and author
	Welcome to my website. Here are a few details about what I do and who I am. Darwin 2009 Joseph Hooker The Guinea Pig book Work in progress Academic interests Broadcasting About me.
	Darwin 2009 2009 was the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. To coincide with these anniversaries, I edited a new scholarly edition of The Origin of Species, which was published by Cambridge University Press in May 2009. It includes an extensive introduction, explanatory notes, brief biographies of everyone Darwin mentions, and an appendix detailing some of the key changes that Darwin made to later editions of the book. I have been speaking about Darwin at various public events around the world and there are podcasts of one or two of these available online.	[TOP of page]
	Joseph Hooker My monograph – Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian science – was published last year by the University of Chicago Press (May 2008). The British Journal for the History of Science reviewed the book (March 2009), and commented that Endersby 'tells us definitively about the vexed meaning of ‘professionalization’ in the Victorian period, the place of experiment and observation in natural history, the role of mapping and publishing and publicizing – all supported by astonishing detail from published and archival material. A short review cannot come close to doing Imperial Nature justice'. The journal Victorian Studies reviewed it (Autumn 2008), describing it as 'a remarkable, deeply researched, multidimensional study' adding that Endersby's 'views will invite controversy while at the same time requiring other historians of the culture and practice of Victorian science to reconsider many of their existing presuppositions. This is a book to be read and pondered'. The Times Higher Education reviewed the book on 24 July, describing it as a ‘fascinating study’. Science (7 Nov 2008) commented: "Endersby give us a detailed, scholarly account with a deeper point: that science is about more than the grand battles of competing ideas. In doing so, he provides a richly textured account of a period in which the status of natural science was far more precarious than it is today. And the book will hopefully stand as a reminder, during next year's Darwin celebrations, of just how many unsung individuals contributed to the scientific progress of the age." The book uses the career of Joseph Dalton Hooker (pictured on the left) to explore three of the major themes in the historiography of Victorian science: the reception of Darwinism; the consequences of empire; and, the emergence of a scientific profession. Each of its nine thematic chapters looks at a particular scientific practice – such as travelling, classifying or writing – and examines its role in Hooker’s work and its broader significance as a way of placing science within the rapidly developing social world of nineteenth-century Britain. I run a website on Hooker, which tells you more about him and my research.	[TOP of page]
	A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology The State Museum (Oberoesterreichische Landesmuseen) of upper Austria, in Linz, are planning an exhibition based on the Guinea Pig book. Planning is now underway and the exhibition is due to open in 2012. A Spanish edition of the book, Una historia de la biología según el conejillo de Indias (pictured), has just been published by Editorial Ariel. The UK paperback edition of my first book, A Guinea Pig's History of Biology was published by Arrow in May 2008. The US paperback from Harvard University Press has also now been published (May 2009). The book won the inaugural Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2007 in the UK. The magazine New Scientist described the book as "Eye-opening and entertaining, this is cutting-edge history of science that everyone should read". The Sunday Times called it "A highly entertaining and original book". Click here if you would like to know more about the book and the organisms it describes.	[TOP of page]
	Work in Progress I am writing a new book for Atlantic Books (UK) that will be published by Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt & Company) in the US. Tentatively called The Skulls in the Basement, it will explore the connections between science and empire during Coleridge's "Second Scientific Revolution", by looking at the ways new sciences were shaped by new classifications. In my Guinea Pig's History, I tried to give a feel of scientific work, what it was like and how it was done, and I will be doing the same in the new book, looking at classification as a kind of work, work that begins by building a collection. One of the collections will be Samuel Morton's collection of human skulls (pictured), in Philadelphia, which provided the basis for his Crania Americana, a notorious work in the history of so-called scientific racism. This collection, which inspired the book's title, is now held in a vault under the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The book will range from classifying races, birds, animals and plants, to geological strata, chemical elements and electrical units. I hope that exploring so many different sciences will give me an opportunity to make interesting connections, but it will at least permit a much wider range of factual errors than the Guinea Pig did, and thus keep my reviewers happy.
	Academic interests I am a senior lecturer in the History Department at the University of Sussex, where I teach the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century science (with a particular emphasis on Darwin, classification, natural history and biology, and on utopias). My current research involves a comparative study of Anglo-American biology in the inter-war period, looking at national scientific traditions and national identity by analysing scientific practices. There is a complete list of my publications available here. I did my first degree in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of New South Wales, followed by an MPhil and PhD in the HPS Department at Cambridge, after which I was a research fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge.	[TOP of page]
	Broadcasting I have appeared on the radio a few times, in Britain, the USA and in Australia. The most recent was on Australian Radio National, where I gave two talks for a show called Ockham's Razor. These broadcasts (and some of my others) are available online. I am currently a consultant for a forthcoming BBC television series on the history of science, which will be broadcast in early Summer 2010. There will be more details here when I have them.
	About Jim Endersby I was born in Kent, an unreasonably long time ago, and such little growing up as I have done happened there and in Kenya (where my father worked for the UN Development Project). I failed A level history (actually, I failed mock A-level history; the school wouldn't even let me sit the real exam), then went to two art schools, which I dropped out of four times in total. I worked as a graphic designer for various lost causes and then moved to Australia. I was getting profoundly bored with graphic design when my oldest friend introduced me to the work of Stephen Jay Gould. From there it was short step to studying history and philosophy of science. I am married with two children and live in Sussex.	[TOP of page]

Last updated: February 4, 2010