Preliminary Guide to the Smithsonian Archives. 125th Anniversary of the SmithsonianInstitution by Smithsonian InstitutionReview by: John NeuIsis, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Jun., 1974), p. 256Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229378 .

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256 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 65 * 2 - 227 (1974)

to associating man's exploitation of the natural world with a belief in continual progress.

Obviously White is deeply concerned about modern man's predicament and makes no secret of wanting to arouse the concern of his readers. Indeed, in the first essay in his book he argues that a legitimate function of the historian is to lay "humanity on the couch," that although historians know little about the past, they know enough "to illuminate many dark closets of our group memories and to exorcise the ghosts that paralyze men into inaction" (p. 7). There- fore, he assumes that if men know how they have reached their presentecological troubles, they will also learn how to remedy them.

This sort of commitment-fused with scholarship and forceful argument-is as admirable as it is unusual. It may well dispel indifference about the current environmental crisis. On the other hand, is White's thesis the last word to be said in explaining an immensely complicated historical process? In emulating the psychoanalyst does he not fall into the historian's most dangerous trap- reductionism? However White's readers may answer these questions, they are still likely to agree that few academic historians have so conspicuous a gift for far-ranging and pro- vocative speculation.

DAVID SPRING Department of History

Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland 21218

materials in the two separate archive depart- ments maintained by the Institution (Archives of American Art and the National Anthropo- logical Archives) will be described in later guides.

The present work is concerned with two types of materials: archives and office re- cords, such as the business papers of the Institution's Secretaries; and manuscripts and other collected materials, such as the Secretaries' personal papers and papers of scientists associated with the Institution.

The descriptive entries are brief, since much of the material has never been organ- ized or catalogued in detail, but each entry gives the name of the office or person who originated the records, the chronological period covered by the material, an indication of the amount of material by size in cubic feet, arrangement of the collection if it is arranged, finding aids if they exist, and bio- graphical data for those persons not in the Dictionary of American Biography.

The Preliminary Guide presents then an overview of the materials for research con- served in the Institution-a useful beginning. The detailed subject and name analyses which will make this material invaluable for the historian of American science have been initiated and are already available in the Institution for some collections. It is hoped they will be published before long in this series. JOHN NEU

MemorialLibrary University of Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin 53706

I BBLIOGRAPHICAL TOOLS

Smithsonian Institution. Prelinminary Guide to the Smithsonian Archives. 125th Anniversary of the Smithsonian Institution. (Archives and Special Collections of the Smithsonian In- stitution, No. 1.) 72 pp., index. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 197 1.

This small guide is the result of beginning efforts to organize the valuable research materials in the Smithsonian Institution and to publish guides to their use. It provides information on only a small part of the In- stitution's archival holdings, those housed in the central archives. Archives generated by the many departments within the Institution and still held in those departments, and

BIOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS

Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Volume III: Cabanis to Dechen, 624 pp., 1971. Volume IV: Dedekind to Firmicas Maternas, 622 pp., 1971. Volume V: Fischer to Haber- landt, 624 pp., 1972. Volume VI: Hachette to Hyrtl, 619 pp., 1972. New York: Scribner's. $35 each.

As more volumes of the Dictionary of Scientific Biography become available, the real scope and richness of this worldwide enterprise begin to take form. To cover such a field while consistently maintaining con- scientious, reliable scholarship is truly im- pressive. It seems greedy to ask for more, but

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