The Historiography of Contemporary Science and TechnologyThomas Söderqvist Today, an increasing number of historians are turning to the history of recent and contemporary science. When doing so, they are confronted with new and unfamiliar methodological and theoretical problems: How to handle the huge amounts of published and unpublished sources? Is it possible to write a synthetic history of recent science? What level of scientific training is necessary to understand recent and contemporary science? Does the lack of historical distance prevent good scholarship? Can (and will) historians of recent science share the turf with other professional groups, such as active scientists, scholars of science and technology studies, and science journalism? How to deal with scientists' and technocrats' constant interference with our work? Whose history are we writing? Whose science? The thirteen contributors to this volume are active researchers in what has been called 'the last frontier' in the history of science. |
Contents
Chapter 1 Who Will Sort out the Hundred or More Paul Ehrlichs? Remarks on the Historiography of Recent and Contemporary Technoscience | 1 |
Problems in the Historiography of Contemporary Science | 19 |
History and History as it Happens | 39 |
Chapter 4 Using Interviews to Write the History of Science | 51 |
Multiple Audiences with Divergent Goals and Standards | 71 |
Some Methodological Observations | 91 |
Memory and History of Molecular Regulation | 109 |
Chapter 8 Electric Memories and Progressive Forgetting | 129 |
The Visualizing Tools of Contemporary Historiography | 151 |
Chapter 10 Writing about Scientists of the Near Past | 165 |
LateModern and PostModern | 179 |
Linking Contemporary Diplomatic History with the History of Contemporary Science | 215 |
Chapter 13 Whos Afraid of the History of Contemporary Science? | 245 |
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Other editions - View all
The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology Thomas Söderqvist No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
activities actors allosteric proteins allosteric regulation American archives Bauman Cambridge century Changeux Cold cold fusion Cold War contemporary history contemporary science context critical culture disciplinary discipline documents Doel electric enzymes example experience field foreign policy Forman forthcoming funding Gaudillière historians history of contemporary history of immunology history of recent history of science Hoddeson Horace F Hubble Space Telescope Iceland IL-2 trial immunology important institutional interest interleukin-2 international science interpretation interviews issues Journal Kuhn laboratory Medicine memory molecular biology Monod narrative NASA National Needell neuroscience nuclear oral history organizations papers participants past Paul physicists physics political postmodernity practice present problems produced professional programs question recent and contemporary recent science research agenda responsibility Reykjavík role scientific intelligence scientists social Society sources Space Telescope story technical technoscience Thomas Söderqvist tion Tom Swift understanding University Press Writing the History York