A work like this is a very challenging, often daunting task to orchestrate. Given this, consider the book as a whole, the high level of (enjoyable) writing, wonderfully constructed narrative, and valuable archival work (and ancillary research), I recommend this work to a very high degree. However, the recommendation doesn't come without qualification. In fact, my personal view is that history and philosophy of science are inseparable in most cases, the exceptions being histories of technological development or some other instance where the history admits little need to understand philosophical underpinnings driving everything. So the following will start with shortcomings, some things that might deter some readers, and then I will move on to what is specifically good about this book, the reasons I think it deserves five stars, despite the negatives.
Quite honestly, I think Hunt failed to pay sufficient homage to the conceptual differences between Maxwell's thinking and the Maxwellians'. Not being a scholar on the subject, or even particularly well read, Hunt gives satisfactory grounds for second guessing his proposal that the only things connect Maxwell to the Maxwellians, and thus not dealing with James Clerk Maxwell in any real capacity, was a referee letter to Stokes about FitzGerald and the (Derridaean) thinking that there is nothing outside "The Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism." After reading the whole book, it is not clear what all has really changed between the two theories, and, therefore, it is difficult to assess whether Maxwell's theory has become the Maxwellians' theory. Certainly, there are additions in mathematics, and a few alterations; but there is plenty of support, just within the account Hunt gives, that there were tremendous differences that were metaphysical and ontological. I am fairly confident that further philosophical investigation would bear out that the action is precisely there: the differences in what J. C. Maxwell thought about the system of electrodynamics and what the Maxwellians thought. There are other points that Hunt doesn't develop, such as the Newtonian/Cartesian tension (Hunt mentions this in a single sentence), to name one. Finally, I am a little concerned about Hunt's mode of going about the history might extend to his treatment of the theory of electromagnetism. The concern is in regard to whether Hunt is projecting a modern understanding of physics onto the physics of the period. There are a couple of subtle points where I thought this could be the case, but it rose to my consciousness only afterword. I would say to be on the lookout for this (and let me know if you notice anything). It was a little difficult for me to conceive of the vector potential, A, was understood entirely as it is today. This is Hunt's area of expertise, so perhaps my intuition is wrong here, but it is something that jumped out at me.
One thing that may turn off the reader who is not trained in physics is the amount of mathematics and physical concepts. On this point, it is one of the items that lends to its value as a piece of scholarship. However, it may detract for those who have no knowledge. To give you an idea, anyone who has been through Griffith's "Introduction to Electrodynamics" is fully competent for what is involved in the text. I should also say that not understanding the physics and math is not the end of the world. Students in my graduate survey of the history of science, untrained in physics, read it, glossing over the technical details, and gleaned much from it.
Now, of the material he includes, I don't think one could do a better job. If I were going to be critical, I would say there were many places where he could have gone further in depth. As far as the narrative and research, before coming to this book, I was unaware of the fact that Maxwell had not developed "his" equations. Hearing about the Maxwellians is a marvelous book for putting the development of physics into perspective. A colleague, also a physicist, told me that she had an old professor that thought Newton was a hack who stole everybody's work; the reason, of course, that this professor thought such was a consequence of see where Newton got his ideas (that whole `standing on the shoulders of giants' must be taken seriously). Hunt does well to dismiss the history/mythology that scientists tend to create from the snippets of what they do know. The social dynamic present among the Maxwellians is well constructed, from correspondences that really bring the people to life. Hunt can certainly paint a picture with words. He also makes good use of diagrams for illustrating the ether models that the Maxwellians had in mind. If I were to say what the book is about, in a sentence, so as to grab your interest, it would be this: A progression, beginning where Maxwell left his theory, the Maxwellians work out, in theoretical and practical terms, the theory of electromagnetism, ironically finishing at a point in which some their core principles (e.g., notion of the ether) have been made vulnerable, setting the stage for relativity.
I recommend this book to all, especially anyone working in engineering and physics. For the intellectual and dilettante, being patient with the mathematics and physics will likely be worthwhile, as I think this is a particularly good book for independent minds who want to understand the development of the modern sciences.
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