An Introduction to the History of Chronobiology, Volume 2: Biological Rhythms in Animals and Humans

Jole Shackelford's three-volume work chronicles the history of chronobiology, the study of biological rhythms, from antiquity to the twentieth century. It explores the intellectual and institutional development of the field, focusing on the circadian rhythm and other biological rhythms in plants and animals.

Format: Hardback
Length: 394 pages
Publication date: 29 November 2022
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

From antiquity to the twentieth century, historian Jole Shackelford has written a three-volume work on the history of chronobiology, the study of biological rhythms. The circadian rhythm, which is connected to the cycles of day and night and is frequently referred to as the "body clock," is arguably the most well-known biological rhythm. However, there are many other biological rhythms, and although scientists and natural philosophers have long been aware of them, only in the last thirty years have a small number of pioneering scientists begun to investigate these rhythms in plants and animals seriously. Shackelford provides a significant, evidence-based account of a field that today holds great promise for applications in agriculture, health care, and public health by tracing the intellectual and institutional development of biological rhythm studies. Early biological observations and research, mostly on plants, are followed in Volume 1. Animal and human rhythms, as well as the disciplinary settings for chronobiological research, are the main topics of Volume 2. The majority of Volume 3 is devoted to twentieth-century researchers who modeled biological clocks and sought them out, including three molecular biologists whose work in determining clock mechanisms earned them a Nobel Prize in 2017.

Weight: 626g
Dimension: 162 x 237 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780822947479