Biography and the History of Science

Abstract

As a genre at the intersection of history and literature, biography challenges its writer to decide organizational rules and elements of plot that are faithful to the subject and attractive to the reader. Mary Jo Nye suggests that there are three principal forms of biography in which the subject is a scientist: the life of the scientist, the scientific life, and the life of scientific collaboration. She explains the meaning of these terms by drawing upon a range of recent biographies in modern science, including Kostas Gavroglu’s biography of Fritz London.