This volume breaks new ground in the study of how national culture, disciplinary tradition, epistemological choice, and political expediency affect the construction of collective memory and, then, how historians work with—and sometimes against—those constructions. Essays focus on a variety of commemorative rites, ranging from the quincentennial of Copernicus to the centennials of Pasteur, Darwin, and Planck; from the tercentenary of Harvard to the half centennial of Los Alamos; from the centennial of evolutionary theory to anniversaries of research schools in molecular biology.

Contributors include Clark A. Elliott, Owen Gingerich, Dieter Hoffmann, Dominque Pestre, Robert W. Seidel, and V. Betty Smocovitis.

These pioneering studies of women in science pay special attention to the mutual impact of family life and scientific career. The contributors address five key themes: historical changes in such concepts as scientific career, profession, patronage, and family; differences in "gender image" associated with various branches of science; consequences of national differences and emigration; opportunities for scientific work opened or closed by marriage; and levels of women's awareness about the role of gender in science. 

An international group of historians of science discuss a wide range of European and American women scientists--from early nineteenth-century English botanists to Marie Curie to the twentieth-century theoretical biologist, Dorothy Wrinch.