A comprehensive history of scientific publishing and its impact on
scientific discourse.
Modern scientific research has changed significantly since the days of
Isaac Newton, with professionalized, collaborative, and international
networks that engage a more diverse community of researchers. Yet, the
long history of scientific publishing reveals a deep mutual relationship
between how academic discourse develops and what (and how) research is
published. With unique insights from the Royal Society of London's
comprehensive archives spanning 350 years of scientific journal
publishing, A History of Scientific Journals illustrates the entangled
histories of scientific publishing and professional discourses. This
volume provides insights into the editorial management, business
practices, and financial difficulties of journals such as Philosophical
Transactions, which was first published in 1665 and has published
papers by Newton, Darwin, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Stephen Hawking. Highly
illustrated with photographs of historic archived documents, including
early publications and editorial annotations, this history extends to
the present day and includes a look at digital journal publication and
the open-access movement, making the book's publication through UCL
Press both appropriate and symbiotic.
