Gregory Good

Teaching Fields:

History of Modern Science since the Scientific Revolution, Environmental History

Contact:

Greg Good
202E Woodburn Hall
P.O. Box 6303
Morgantown, WV 26506-6303
Phone: (304) 293-2421 ext. 5247
Fax: (304) 293-3616
Greg.Good@mail.wvu.edu

• Degrees

  PhD, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Toronto, Canada, 1982
  MA, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Toronto, 1976
  BS, With Highest Honors, Physics, St. Vincent College, Latrobe, PA, 1974

• Research Interests

  The general areas of my research concern the history of human interaction with and investigation of the physical environment of Earth in the last few centuries. I am especially concerned with the active investigation part—what scientists and others investigating the Earth have done on a day-to-day basis, how they have supported that research, to what end, and to what effect. I am writing a book manuscript titled “Magnetic Lives,” which narrates the great variety of ways investigators have built careers and lives around a most elusive part of Earth’s physical environment: its magnetism. I also contemplate a thematic biography of the Victorian scientist/philosopher John Herschel, titled “Herschel’s Planet: John Herschel (1791-1872) and his Cosmic View of the Earth.”

  In the summer of 2008 I am seeing through the press the book Appalachian Rivers Suite: Three National Park System Rivers in West Virginia, Administrative History of New River Gorge National River, Gauley River National Recreation Area, and Bluestone National Scenic River for the U.S. National Park Service. 354-page history of the three West Virginia rivers units of the NPS narrates in eight chapters how the culture and landscape of these river areas became what the Park Service found in 1978, after a hard-fought campaign by mostly local Chamber of Commerce activists and conservations to protect especially the New River Gorge. The book also lays out the history of land acquisition and development of (and sometimes failure of) vision for the Park Service in the area. Through a close investigation of the Park Service’s involvement with rafting and water quality, historic coal mines and railroad towns, and with its management of mass tourism, the book provides critical interpretation of the implementation of these three river parks and what they have meant for local Appalachian culture. Copies will be available from the NPS later in 2008.

  I am also preparing an edited book for publication, International Geophysical Year + 50: The Different Legacies of the IGY in the Earth Sciences. Prospectus solicited by Rutgers University Press. Co-editor: Kristine Harper. This book will include disciplinary histories of half a dozen geosciences asking the critical questions of how the IGY affected the stories of different specialties differently. There are some surprising answers.
  The tie (not all too evident) which binds such diverse topics together is, once again, the history of human interaction with and investigation of the physical Earth environment. This is not just a stage that historical actors play on.

• Grad Students Advised

  MA
  Lynn Stasick
  Eric S. Wright
  Marc Mezzina

• Courses Offered

  Hist 271-Science/Religion and Myth
  Hist 272-Science Since 1700
  Hist 277-Revolutions in Science and Technology
  Hist 284-History of Environmental Science
  Hist 407-The Rise of Modern Science
  Hist 408-Science in Modern Europe

• Publications

  Books:
  2008 Appalachian Rivers Suite: Three National Park System Rivers in West Virginia, Administrative History of New River Gorge National River, Gauley River National Recreation Area, and Bluestone National Scenic River. National Park Service. 354 p.

  1998 Editor, Sciences of the Earth: An Encyclopedia of Events, People, and Phenomena (New York and London: Garland Encyclopedias in the History of Science, 1998). 240 articles, 2 vols., 901 pages. Reviewed in ISIS, 2000, 91:842-843; Earth Sciences History, 2000, 19:232-233; and Newsletter of the Committee on the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Soil Science, 1999.

  1994 Editor, The Earth, the Heavens, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in the American Geophysical Union series “History of Geophysics,” vol. 5. The volume includes 27 articles (xiv + 252 p.). Reviewed in: Science, 26 August 1994, 265:1253-1254; Newsletter of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO), 1993, No. 26:45-46; History: Reviews of New Books, Spring 1995, 23:118; Journal for the History of Astronomy, May 1995, 26:183-184; Earth Sciences History, 1995, 14:103-104.

  Articles:
  2008a S. Keith Runcorn, in The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Noretta Koertge, 8 vols. (New York: Thomson-Gale), 6:298-302.

  2008b Between Data, Mathematical Analysis, and Physical Theory: Research on Earth’s Magnetism in the 19th Century, Centaurus: An International Journal of the History of Science and its Cultural Aspects, in press 2008.

  2007 Magnetic World: The Historiography of an Inherently Complex Science, Geomagnetism, in the 20th Century, Earth Sciences History, 26:281-300.

  2007 Geophysical Travelers: The Magneticians of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in Four Centuries of Geological Travel: The Search for Knowledge on Foot, Bicycle, Sledge and Camel, ed. P.N. Wyse Jackson (London: Geological Society), Special Publication 287, 395-408.

  2007 History of (geomagnetic) Instrumentation, in Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism, eds. David Gubbins and Emilio Herrero-Bervera (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer), 434-439.

  2006 A Shift of View: Meteorology in John Herschel’s terrestrial physics. In Intimate Universality: Local and Global Themes in the History of Weather and Climate, eds. J.R. Fleming, V. Jankovic, and D.R. Coen, New York: Science History Publications, 35-67.

  2002 From Terrestrial Magnetism to Geomagnetism: Disciplinary Transformation in the Twentieth Century, in The Earth Inside and Out: Some Major Contributions to Geology in the Twentieth Century, ed. David R. Oldroyd, Geological Society, London, Special Publication 192, 229-239.

  2000 The Assembly of Geophysics: Scientific Disciplines as Frameworks of Consensus, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31:259-292.

  1998 Toward a History of the Sciences of the Earth. Intro to Sciences of the Earth, 1998, xvii-xxvi.

  1998 Geomagnetism: Theories between 1800 and 1900. In Sciences of the Earth, 1998, 350-357.

  1998 Resources for Research in History of the Geosciences. In Sciences of the Earth , 1998, xxxiii-xl.

  1994 The Breadth, Height, and Depth of the Geosciences at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Introduction to The Earth..., 1994, xi-xiii.

  1994 Vision of a Global Physics: The Carnegie Institution and the First World Magnetic Survey. In The Earth..., 1994, 29-36.

  1991 The Rockefeller Foundation, the Leipzig Geophysical Institute and National Socialism in the 1930s. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 21:299-316.

  1991 Between Two Empires: The Toronto Magnetic Observatory and American Science before Confederation, Scientia Canadensis, 1986, 10:34-52. Reprinted in Richard A. Jarrell and James P. Hull, eds., Science, Technology and Medicine in Canada’s Past: Selections from Scientia Canadensis. Thornhill, Canada: The Scientia Press, 1991, 36-53.

  1990 Scientific Sovereignty: Canada, The Carnegie Institution, and the Earth’s Magnetism in the North. Scientia Canadensis, 14:3-37.

  1990 Secular Variation of the Earth’s Magnetism. Encyclopedia of the Earth Sciences, (Pasadena: Salem Press), 540-547.

  1988 The Study of Geomagnetism in the Late 19th Century. Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 69:218-232.

  1987 John Herschel’s Optical Researches and the Development of his Ideas on Method and Causality, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 18:1-41.

  1986 Government Funding of Scientific Instrumentation: A Review of U.S. Policy Debates since World War II, Science, Technology, and Human Values, 11:34-46. Co-author: Jeffrey K. Stine. A revision and extension of report to NSF.