James (Jim) Andrew Secord (born 18 March 1953) is an American-born historian of science. He was a professor (now retired) of history and philosophy of science within theDepartment of History and Philosophy of Science at theUniversity of Cambridge,^[1] and a fellow ofChrist's College.^[2] He was also the director (from 2006 until completed in 2023) of the project to publish the completeCorrespondence of Charles Darwin.^[3]Secord is especially well known forVictorian Sensation, his award-winning study of the reception of the anonymousVestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a pioneering evolutionary book first published in 1844. In 2020 he was elected as a Fellow of theBritish Academy.^[4]

Secord was born inMadison, Wisconsin. After attendingPomona College, he received aFulbright–Hays grant to study in the United Kingdom.^[5] He completed his Ph.D. in the history of science atPrinceton University (1976–81). His dissertation was entitled "Cambria/Siluria: The Anatomy of a Victorian Geological Debate" and his adviser wasCharles Coulston Gillispie.^[6] After postdoctoral fellowships atUniversity College London and atChurchill College in theUniversity of Cambridge, he taught history of science atImperial College London from 1985 to 1992.^[7] In 1992 he began teaching in Cambridge.

In 2012 he held theSandars Readership in Bibliography atCambridge University.^[8]

Secord's first book, based upon his Ph.D. research, wasControversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). He followed it withVictorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), which was awarded the 2002Pfizer Award by theHistory of Science Society for best book in history of science in English in the prior three years.^[9] His most recent book wasVisions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).^[10] He has also edited numerous volumes and contributed to many more.

Source:^[11]

• ‘Nature’s Fancy: Charles Darwin and the Breeding of Pigeons.’Isis72 (1981): 162–186.doi:10.1086/352717
• ‘King of Siluria: Roderick Murchison and the Imperial Theme in Nineteenth Century British Geology.’Victorian Studies,25 (1982): 413–442.
• ‘John W. Salter: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Palaeontological Career.’ InFrom Linnaeus to Darwin: Commentaries on the History of Biology and Geology, ed. by A. Wheeler and J. Price, 61–75. London: Society for the History of Natural History, 1985.
• ‘Newton in the Nursery: Tom Telescope and the Philosophy of Tops and Balls, 1761–1838.’History of Science23 (1985): 127–151.
• ‘Natural History in Depth.’Social Studies of Science15 (1985): 181–200.doi:10.1177/030631285015001010
• ‘Darwin and the Breeders: A Social History.’ InThe Darwinian Heritage, ed. by D. Kohn, 519–542. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
• ‘The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a Research School, 1839-1855.’History of Science24 (1986): 223–275.doi:10.1177/007327538602400301
• ‘Pasteur and the Process of Discovery: The Case of Optical Isomerism.’Isis79 (1988): 6-36 (with G. L. Geison).doi:10.1086/354632
• ‘Behind the Veil: Robert Chambers and Vestiges.’ InHistory, Humanity and Evolution, ed. by J. R. Moore, 165–194. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• ‘Extraordinary Experiment: Electricity and the Creation of Life in Victorian England.’ InThe Uses of Experiment, ed. by D. Gooding, T. Pinch, and S. Schaffer, 337–383. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• ‘The Curious Case ofAcarus crossii.’Nature345 (1990): 471–472.doi:10.1038/345471a0 (SeeAndrew Crosse.)
• ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians: Robert Jameson and Robert E. Grant.’Journal of the History of Biology24 (1991), 1–18.
• ‘The Discovery of a Vocation: Darwin’s Early Geology.’British Journal for the History of Science24 (1991), 133–157.doi:10.1017/S0007087400027059
• ‘Scientific London.’ InLondon: World City 1800-1840, ed. by C. Fox, 129–142. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992 (with I. Morus and S. J. Schaffer).
• ‘Clarke, Alexander Ross.’ InThe Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons, ed. by C. S. Nicholls, 135–136. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
• ‘Introduction.’ In R. Chambers,Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and other Evolutionary Writings, vii-xlv. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
• ‘The Counter-Revolution in Science.’Yorkshire Philosophical Society Annual Report for the Year 1995, 49–51. York: 1996.
• ‘The Crisis of Nature.’ InCultures of Natural History, ed. by N. Jardine, J. Secord and E. Spary, 447–459, 493–494. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• ‘Introduction.’ In C. Lyell,Principles of Geology, ix-xliii. London: Penguin Books, 1997.
• ‘Une science à la mode.’Les Cahiers de Science et Vie49 (1999): 14–23.
• ‘Geology.’ InAn Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776–1832, ed. by I. McCalman, 519–521. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• ‘Robert Chambers.’ InCambridge Bibliography of English Literature. 3d ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. Shattock, cols. 2528–2531. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• ‘Progress in Print.’ InBooks and the Sciences in History, ed. by M. Frasca-Spada and N. Jardine, 369–389. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• ‘Vestigial Sensations: Author’s Reply.’ In review symposium onVictorian Sensation,Metascience11 (2002), 28–33.
• ‘Quick and Magical Shaper of Science [J. H. Pepper].’Science297 (2002), 1648–1649.
• 'Introduction.' In reprint of J. H. Pepper,The Boy's Playbook of Science (1860), v-x. Bristol: Edition Synapse/ Thoemmes Press, 2003.
• 'Introduction.' In reprint of [S. Clark],Peter Parley's Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky (1837), v-x. Bristol: Edition Synapse/ Thoemmes Press, 2003.
• ‘Author’s Response.’ In review symposium onVictorian Sensation,Journal of Victorian Culture8 (2003), 142–150.
• ‘From Miller to the Millennium.’ InCelebrating the Life and Times of Hugh Miller, ed. by L. Borley, 328–337. Cromarty, Scotland: Cromarty Arts Trust, 2003.
• ‘Monsters at the Crystal Palace.’ InModels: The Third Dimension of Science, ed. by S. de Chadarevian and N. Hopwood, 138–169. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.
• ‘Andrew Crosse,’ ‘Henry De la Beche,’ ‘David Page,’ ‘John William Salter,’ ‘Adam Sedgwick,’ ‘Harry Govier Seeley,’ ‘Daniel Sharpe,’ ‘Charles Southwell,’ ‘William Bernhardt Tegetmeier.’ InOxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• ‘Knowledge in Transit.’Isis95 (2004): 654–672.
• ‘Scrapbook Science: Composite Caricatures in Late Georgian England.’ InFiguring It Out: Science, Gender, and Visual Culture, ed. by B. Lightman and A. Shteir, 164–191. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2006.
• ‘Science’, contribution to symposium on textbooks,Journal of Victorian Culture12.2 (2007) 272–276.
• ‘The Geohistorical Revolution’, contribution to review symposium on M. Rudwick,Bursting the Limits of Time,Metascience16 (2007), 375–386.
• ‘From Scientific Conversation to Shop Talk.’ InScience in the Marketplace, ed. by A. Fyfe and B. Lightman, 23–59. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
• ‘Science, Technology and Mathematics.’ InThe Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5, 1830–1914, ed. by D. McKitterick, 443–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2009).
• ‘Introduction’ to focus section on ‘Darwin as a cultural icon’Isis100 (2009), 537–541.
• ‘The Secret History of Victorian Evolution’,Journal of Cambridge Studies4 (2009), 23–36.
• ‘A Non-Darwinian in the Darwin Year’,Journal of Cambridge Studies4 (2009), 46-55 (with Haiyan Yang).
• ‘Seriality and Scientific Objects in the Nineteenth Century’,History of Science48 (2010), 251-285 (with N Hopwood and S Schaffer).
• ‘Global Darwin’ in W. Brown and A C Fabian (eds)Darwin. Cambridge University Press, 2010, 31–57.
• ‘Foreword’ inScience in Print: Essays on the History of Science and the Culture of Print, ed. by R. D. Apple, G. J. Downey and S. L. Vaughn. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012, vii-xiii.
• ‘Early Science Literacy',Natural History (Dec. 2014-Jan. 2015), 28-33.
• 'Introduction: Communicating Reproduction',Bulletin of the History of Medicine 89 (2015), 379-405 (with N. Hopwood, P. M. Jones and L. Kassell).
• ‘Mary Somerville’s Vision of Science’,Physics Today (1 Jan. 2018), 46-52.
• ‘Global Geology and the Tectonics of Empire’, inWorlds of Natural History, ed. by H. Curry, N. Jardine, J. Secord and E. Spary, 401–417, 610–612. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• ‘Natural History and its Histories in the Twenty-first Centuries’, inWorlds of Natural History, ed by H. Curry, N. Jardine, J. Secord and E. Spary, 535–544, 632–634. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018 (with H. Curry).doi:10.1017/9781108225229.034
• ‘Talking Origins’, inReproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day, ed. by N. Hopwood, R. Flemming and L. Kassell, 375–389. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• ‘Spontaneous Generation and the Triumph of Experiment’, inReproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day, ed. by N. Hopwood, R. Flemming and L. Kassell, Exhibit 26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• ‘Eureka!’, inSurprise: 107 Variations on the Unexpected, ed. by M. Fend, A. te Heesen, C. von Oertzen and F. Vidal, Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2019, 356–359.https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/sites/default/files/2019-09/surprise_daston_2019.pdf
• ‘Life on the Moon, Newspapers on Earth’, inMoon: A Celebration of our Celestial Neighbour, ed. by M. Vandenbrouck et al., London: Royal Observatory Greenwich, 2019, 150–155, 240.

• Writers from Madison, Wisconsin
• Fellows of Christ's College, Cambridge
• 1953 births
• Living people
• 21st-century American historians
• 21st-century American male writers
• Princeton University alumni
• American expatriate academics
• American expatriates in the United Kingdom
• American historians of science
• Pomona College alumni
• Historians from California
• Historians from Wisconsin
• American male non-fiction writers

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