"English joiner John Head (1688–1754) immigrated to Philadelphia in 1717 and became one of its most successful artisans and merchants. However, his prominence was lost to history until the author’s discovery of his account book at the Library of the American Philosophical Society. A find of great historical importance, Head’s account book is the earliest and most complete to have survived from any cabinetmaker working in British North America or in Great Britain. It chronicles the commerce, crafts, and lifestyles of early Philadelphia’s entire community: its shopkeeping, cabinetmaking, chairmaking, clockmaking, glazing, metalworking, needleworking, property development, agriculture, botany, livestock, transport, foodstuffs, drink, hardware, fabrics, furnishings, household wares, clothing, building materials, and export trade. Jay Robert Stiefel, historian of Colonial Philadelphia society and its material culture, presents the definitive interpretation of the John Head account book and introduces many other discoveries. The culmination of nearly 20 years of research, this new volume serves as an essential reference work on 18th-century Philadelphia, its furniture and material culture, as well as an intimate and detailed social history of the interactions among that era’s most talented artisans and successful merchants. Profusely illustrated and in large format, the book includes a foreword from furniture historian Adam Bowett and an introduction by historian Patrick Spero, Librarian and Director of the American Philosophical Society Library" -- Provided by publisher.

Beginning in the 1950s, Edwin Wolf 2nd embarked on a biblio'l. quest to reconstruct the library of Benjamin Franklin, which was the largest & best private library in Amer. at the time of his death & was subsequently dispersed. The contents of Franklin's library were virtually unknown until Wolf identified the unique shelfmarks that Franklin used to organize his books. That discovery allowed Wolf to locate 2,700 titles in 1,000 vols. that Franklin actually owned. Wolf also identified a further 700 titles owned by Franklin. After wolf's death, Kevin Hayes took up the project & brought it to fruition. This catalogue includes almost 4,000 books known to have been owned by Franklin, & the Intro. tells the complete story of Franklin's library, its dispersal, & its reconstruction.

In 1901 Emil von Behring received the first Nobel Prize in med. for serum therapy against diphtheria, a disease that killed thousands of infants annually. Diphtheria serum was the first major cure of the bacteriological era and its develop. generated procedures for testing, standardizing, and regulating drugs. Emphasizes Behring's contrib. to the study of infectious disease, the formation of modern immunology, and research on remedies and vaccines against microbial infections. Explores his relations to the rival bacteriological schools of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the emergent German pharmaceutical industry, and the institutionalization of experimental therapeutic research. Also contains translations of 13 key articles by Behring and his assoc.

Useful Knowledge: What will it be for the next millennium? In five symposia, members of the Amer. Philosophical Soc. asked this question in April 1999 at the Society's Millennium Meet. Contents: (1) Math & Physical Sciences: The Laws of Nature; Our Concepts of the Cosmos, Progress, Prospects & Mysteries; Math & Computing; Global Warming: Does Science Matter?; & The Molecular Biology of Huntington's Disease; (2): Biological Sci.: Scientists & the Public: An Ambivalent Partnership; Cancer: The Revolution & the Challenges; Wiring the Brain: Dynamic Interplay between Nature & Nurture; & A Neuroscience of Memory for the 21st Cent.; (3) Social Sci.: Nat. Sovereignty & Human Rights; Econ. Becomes a Science -- Or Does It?; & A Millennium of Economics in Twenty Minutes: In Pursuit of Useful Knowledge; (4) Humanities: Art & Architectural History in the 20th Cent.; More Than One Millennium: The Perennial Return of the History of Religions; & Singularity in an Age of Globalization; & (5) The Professions, Arts & Affairs: 100 Yrs. of the Renaissance; Race & Admission to Univ.; Health Care in a Democratic Soc.; & Culture & Democracy in America. Illus.