The Continental Drift Controversy 4 Volume Paperback Set
Author(s): Henry R. Frankel (Author)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 13 April 2017
Language: English
Print length: 2368 pages
ISBN-10: 1316616517
ISBN-13: 9781316616512
Book Description
Resolution of the sixty-year debate over continental drift, culminating in the triumph of plate tectonics, changed the very fabric of Earth science. This four-volume treatise on the continental drift controversy is the first complete history of the origin, debate and gradual acceptance of this revolutionary theory. Based on extensive interviews, archival papers and original works, Frankel weaves together the lives and work of the scientists involved, producing an accessible narrative for scientists and non-scientists alike. Volume 1 covers the early 1900s when Wegener first proposed that the continents had once been a single landmass. Volume 2 describes the growing paleomagnetic case for continental drift in the 1950s and development of Apparent Polar Wander Paths. Volume 3 describes the expansion of the land-based paleomagnetic case for drifting continents, and Volume 4 recounts the discovery of geomagnetic reversals leading to the rapid acceptance of seafloor spreading and the birth of plate tectonics.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘… an unparalleled study of remarkable depth, detail and quality of a key development in our ideas about how the Earth functions … because Frankel draws on his extensive oral historical work with the key players in the development of plate tectonics, this is a study which can never be repeated in terms of its proximity to the events narrated, so many of those key players now being deceased.’ Robert J. Mayhew, Progress in Physical Geography
‘Every historian of 20th-century Earth science will need these volumes close at hand; there is no substitute. Every scientist and educator seeking the stories behind the story of the changing face of the Earth will need them as well, none more than those who think they already know the story … It is the one that brings historians and scientists together in a common cause, as these volumes richly demonstrate.’ Paul F. Hoffman, EOS
Book Description
This four-volume treatise on the continental drift controversy is the first complete history of the revolutionary theory of plate tectonics.
About the Author
Henry Frankel was awarded a PhD from Ohio State University in 1974 and then took a position at the University of Missouri – Kansas City where he became Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department (1999–2004). His interest in the continental drift controversy and the plate tectonics revolution began while teaching a course on conceptual issues in science during the late 1970s. The controversy provided him with an example of a recent and major scientific revolution to test philosophical accounts of scientific growth and change. Over the next thirty years, and with the support of the United States National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical Society, Professor Frankel’s research went on to yield new and fascinating insights into the evolution of the most important theory in the Earth sciences.
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