Readers of Alan Chalmers's widely reprinted, revised and translated textbook What is this thing called Science? know that he is a virtuoso of both history of science and philosophy of science, who also brings into play a professional training in physics. With One Hundred Years of Pressure he has given us his scholarly masterpiece. It is a work whose somewhat arcane topic and odd title belie what is arguably one of the most important pieces of technical history of science written about the Scientific Revolution so far this century. These days it is hard to imagine such a work being widely read, let alone written, in the remaining great HPS programmes. But that, for me, will now be the touchstone of evaluation: Are your students reading Chalmers on hydrostatics in the Scientific Revolution? If not, why not?' Chalmers's work on mechanism and atomism as hindrances to the advance of chemistry in the early modern period is well known and has been controversial, although I have always tended to agree with him. Here, in the case of hydrostatics, Chalmers has done something similar and again I think he is correct, although there are questions to be raised about what he thinks this means for the larger picture of the Scientific Revolution.
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