The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academy Press, was created with the goal of making books on science, technology, and health more widely available to professionals and the public. The new imprint responds to rising public interest in science issues. As the Cold War has given way to a spirit of international competitiveness, Americans have shifted their attention to the need to maintain the U.S. lead in science and technology. The Joseph Henry Press is uniquely positioned to bring cutting-edge books on science topics to an increasingly science-literate reading public. Books already published or in press cover a range of topics--from environmental science to public health--and we look forward to expanding the offerings of this important new imprint of the National Academy Press. Joseph Henry was a man of renaissance spirit and a leader in the major scientific progress of his era--the mid-nineteenth century. He discovered principles of electromagnetism that paved the way for the telegraph and the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell praised him for his help and encouragement, saying, "But for Joseph Henry, I would never have gone ahead with the telephone."

Joseph Henry developed the plan for using James Smithson's bequest for a new scientific institution and served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, where his direction helped to establish America's scientific reputation worldwide. One of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences, Henry served as its second president during the time when the Academy had to overcome organizational growing pains to position itself as a leading scientific institution. He worked diligently to improve the Academy's bylaws, broaden its membership, raise funds for scientific publications, and promote the Academy's services to the government.