Science, science, science… how I keep coming back to you. Maybe it’s that I am a historian of the long eighteenth century, the supposed budding years of Enlightened tinkering. I’m not complaining, merely pointing out how much History and Science have crossed paths in my inquiries.

Recently, an assignment in class – find primary materials to go with a Kenneth Pomeranz book – had a student alert me to the existence of E.S.P., Electronic Scholarly Publishing. This website began as a project of the U.S. Department of Energy whose funding has long since stopped. ESP is now completely volunteer-driven. Oh, but the treasures they hold!

Imagine a site with clean, downloadable pdf’s of many major scientific publications from Aristotle to the present. Darwin and Malthus are here, as well as Huxley and Vries. ESP brings to you if you are ready to rifle through them, hundreds of primary publications dedicated to science and in particular… genetics.

Here is the LINK: http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/browse/

Science and History together. And good reading!