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| Historical Biology (journal) | |
|---|---|
| Title | Historical Biology |
| Discipline | Paleontology; History of Science |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| History | 1988–present |
| Issn | 0891-2963 |
| Eissn | 1029-2381 |
Historical Biology (journal) is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history and historiography of zoological, botanical, geological, and paleontological studies, emphasizing biographies, institutional histories, and the development of concepts in Darwinian studies, Lamarckian ideas, and Mendelian inheritance. The journal publishes research on archival discoveries, correspondence, and disciplinary exchanges involving figures such as Thomas Henry Huxley, Richard Owen, Ernst Haeckel, Charles Lyell, and Alfred Russel Wallace. It attracts contributions from historians associated with institutions like the British Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Museum, London, American Museum of Natural History, and universities such as University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Harvard University, and University of California, Berkeley.
Launched in 1988 amid renewed scholarly interest in the historical development of natural history, the journal originated from networks linking the History of Science Society, the Royal Society, the Linnean Society of London, the Geological Society of London, and the American Philosophical Society. Early editorial leadership included historians connected to John van Wyhe, Janet Browne, Michael Ruse, Peter Bowler, Simon Schaffer, and Allan Chapman. The journal chronicled debates involving collections at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and published analyses referencing expeditions by Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle, voyages linked to James Cook, and specimens acquired during the Imperial collecting practices of the East India Company.
The journal aims to bridge archival scholarship with theoretical approaches drawn from scholars like Thomas Kuhn, Bruno Latour, Michel Foucault, E. O. Wilson, and Stephen Jay Gould. It solicits work on episodes such as the debates over Neanderthal discoveries, the controversy surrounding Piltdown Man, studies of museum practices at the Natural History Museum, London, and analyses of codevelopment between fieldwork by figures like Mary Anning and classification systems advanced by Carl Linnaeus. The scope includes intersections with institutions including the Royal Institution, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, and archival collections at the National Archives (UK) and Library of Congress.
Editorial governance has involved editors drawn from departments at University College London, Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, and University of Chicago. The journal uses external peer review with referees often affiliated with the Wellcome Trust, the National Science Foundation, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and museums such as the Field Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. Editorial boards have included historians who collaborate with curators from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, directors of the Natural History Museum, London, and scholars linked to research centers like the Darwin Correspondence Project and the Berg Collection.
Published by Taylor & Francis on a quarterly schedule, the journal issues include special thematic collections organized around topics like the professionalization of paleontology, colonial collections, and historiographies of anatomy. Subscribers include university presses such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and libraries at institutions like the British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the Vatican Library. The journal participates in digital distribution networks adopted by repositories such as JSTOR, Project MUSE, and indexing services used by the Web of Science and Scopus.
Abstracting services and indexing that list the journal include databases maintained by the Web of Science Group, Scopus operated by Elsevier, the Emerging Sources Citation Index, and subject listings in the Historical Abstracts database. Libraries catalog holdings under schemes used by the Library of Congress and the Dewey Decimal Classification in major institutions including the British Library, Harvard Library, and the New York Public Library.
Notable articles have revisited episodes such as the recognition of Archaeopteryx, reinterpretations of Iguanodon discoveries, reassessments of Mary Anning’s role, and archival revelations concerning correspondence between Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker. Other influential pieces examined the institutional rise of paleontology at the British Museum (Natural History), the role of field collectors tied to the Hudson's Bay Company, and the professional trajectories of figures like Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. The journal has published scholarship connected to modern reinterpretations of specimens from the Green River Formation, Burgess Shale, and Messel Pit, influencing museum exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum.
Scholars in history departments at University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, and Stanford University have cited the journal in studies of historiography, curatorship, and biographical reconstruction. Curators and archivists at the Natural History Museum, London, Smithsonian Institution, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle have used its articles to inform catalogue revisions and exhibition narratives. The journal has been discussed in forums associated with the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, and conferences at institutions including the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine.
Category:Academic journals Category:History of science journals