They Thought What? Unpacking the history (and present) of science

So often in awe of the way that people in the past were prescient - but sometimes it's fair to think "they thought WHAT?" contingentmagazine.org/2026/04/16/t...

weird research encounter of the day: someone looked at the alphabet and thought, “great, but it needs more goblins.” honestly, correct.
sammlungenonline.albertina.at/objects/1064...

The Carletti book is out (www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...), and with it my very raunchy article. Here reviewed in the Corriere Fiorentino (Corriere della Sera)! Enjoy (but not too much!).

Doing research using pharmacopeias, drugs, or the history of medicine? Tomorrow's First Fridays Pharmacopeias features Stuart Anderson about his recent book, Pharmacopeias, Drug Regulation, and Empires: Making Medicines Official in Britain's Imperial World, 1618-1968. dm mcooley@hamilton.edu to join

Cambridge Early Modern Science and Medicine Essay Prize 2026 Competition For the fourth year, Early Science and Medicine and the Early Sciences Forum of the History of Science Society are joining together to run a prize competition for the best essay focusing on early science, medicine, technology, and other forms of natural knowledge across the globe before 1800. We welcome submissions from early career research and also from more senior scholars. The author of the winning essay will receive a $200 award and the piece will be published as an article in Early Science and Medicine subject to peer review; the committee will provide mentorship throughout the process. The winner will be strongly encouraged to attend the 2026 History of Science Society Conference in Edinburgh on July 13-16, 2026 as the prize will be awarded at the Early Sciences Forum Meeting. The prize is sponsored by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge. We invite you to submit unpublished essays between 6,000 and 10,000 words in English that are not under consideration at another journal. Please follow the ESM style guide and make sure that your paper has been anonymized. ESM publishes images in color and black-and-white; the author will handle permissions. Please submit essays via email to earlysciencesforum@gmail.com by February 15, 2026 with a cover letter stating your name and the title of the article; the winner will be notified in the spring of 2026, in plenty of time to arrange for travel.

Competition for the best essay focusing on early science, medicine, technology, and other forms of natural knowledge across the globe before 1800.
#EarlyModern 🗃️

hahah oops

Please submit essays via email to earlysciencesforum@gmail.com by February 15, 2026 with a cover letter stating your name and the title of the article; the winner will be notified in the spring of 2026, in plenty of time to arrange for travel.

Please follow the ESM style guide and make sure that your paper has been anonymized. ESM publishes images in color and black-and-white; the author will handle permissions.

The prize is sponsored by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.

We invite you to submit unpublished essays between 6,000 and 10,000 words in English that are not under consideration at another journal.

The winner will be strongly encouraged to attend the 2026 History of Science Society Conference in Edinburgh on July 13-16, 2024 as the prize will be awarded at the Early Sciences Forum Meeting. ...

The author of the winning essay will receive a $200 award and the piece will be published as an article in Early Science and Medicine subject to peer review; the committee will provide mentorship throughout the process. ...

focusing on early science, medicine, technology, and other forms of natural knowledge across the globe before 1800.

We welcome submissions from early career research and also from more senior scholars...

spreading the news about the Cambridge Early Modern Science and Medicine Essay Prize 2026 Competition! Early Science and Medicine and the Early Sciences Forum of the History of Science Society's prize competition for the best essay...

Cooley, “A Patchwork Colombian Exchange,” RQ Winter 2025 Mackenzie Cooley, “A Patchwork Columbian Exchange: Ecological Imperialism, Animals, and the Relaciones Geográficas  of New Spain,” Renaissance Quarterly 78.4 (2025).

New article in RQ where @mackenziecooley.bsky.social uses the relaciones geograficas so show how the Columbian Exchange was, at a local level, uneven and idiosyncratic emspanishhistorynotes.wordpress.com/2026/01/06/c...

Thank you for the shout-out!!

Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds The essays and original visualizations collected in Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds explore the relationships among natural things - ranging from pollen in a gust of wind to a carnivorous pitche...

Oh, so you mean present-day exhibitions of early modern objects? I'll have a think. This volume co-edited by @mackenziecooley.bsky.social, @annatoledano.com, and @duyguyildirim.bsky.social (someone needs to encourage them to hang out here!) may have leads:

www.routledge.com/Natural-Thin...

The first meeting is this Friday and features mini-presentations on our new Special Issue (hopp.uwpress.org/content/66/2) and meet-and-greets with new collaborators.

Have an odd pharmacopeia that you’d like to consult on? Could the platform assist you in your studies of related materials? Interested in contributing to the growing dataset?

We meet on the first Friday of the month at 9:30 am NY time via Zoom. Email mcooley@hamilton.edu for the link.

Join the Historical Pharmacopeias community for our monthly conversation - “First Friday Pharmacopeias.”

Conducting research on materia medica? Interested in HP (dalme.org/collections/...)?

Promotional graphic for "Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue". The graphic shows the book's forest green cover on the far left, flanked on the right by a summarising paragraph which says: "A comparative study showing how early modern China and Spain built and balanced their empires through parallel systems of local knowledge, governance, and global exchange."

A new week means a brilliant selection of new titles from our distributed presses. First up, "Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" from Lever Press's ASIANetwork Books collection.

Find it here: bit.ly/3Vcoc47
@leverpress.bsky.social
@mackenziecooley.bsky.social

The first two chapters - by Maria Portuondo and Joe Dennis - show the making of two different guidelines.

We go back in time with @lxslcs.bsky.social's elegant chapter on the precedents for the guidelines, "Imperial Territorial Data before the Age of Print: “Illustrated Guidelines.”

How did states a world apart develop similar documentary techniques to know the dominions under their control, and how do these techniques help us understand the state in question?

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, centrally appointed imperial officials in both China and the Spanish Americas were instructed to gather, compile, and submit information about the locales they administered, following a centrally issued, itemized compilation guideline or questionnaire.

A mini-intro to the first part of our book, "Knowing an Empire" with @leverpress.bsky.social

services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Know...

Sources drawn from the originals, and artwork designed by Olivia Buckton and June Lee, mentored by Zoë Sadokierski, University of Technology Sydney School of Design.

"Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" unveils how these two vast empires developed comparable systems to gather, order, and wield knowledge about their local worlds in the process of empire-building.

services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Know...

Thank you to everyone who took part in the conversation at the core of this book.

Last but not least, we need global histories that aren't all about loose connections. World history is full of similar inventions to solve similar problems.

As a Europeanist by training, may I also say that we need to take seriously the scale of Chinese history, and what we can learn from scholars who have navigated its incredible documentary troves.