Beställningsvara. Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar. Fri frakt för medlemmar vid köp för minst 249 kr.
Increasingly, scholars in the humanities are calling for a reengagement with the natural sciences. Taking their cues from recent breakthroughs in genetics and the neurosciences, advocates of “big history” are reassessing long-held assumptions about the very definition of history, its methods, and its evidentiary base. In Scientific History, Elena Aronova maps out historians’ continuous engagement with the methods, tools, values, and scale of the natural sciences by examining several waves of their experimentation that surged highest at perceived times of trouble, from the crisis-ridden decades of the early twentieth century to the ruptures of the Cold War. The book explores the intertwined trajectories of six intellectuals and the larger programs they set in motion: Henri Berr (1863–1954), Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943), Julian Huxley (1887–1975), and John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971). Though they held different political views, spoke different languages, and pursued different goals, these thinkers are representative of a larger motley crew who joined the techniques, approaches, and values of science with the writing of history, and who created powerful institutions and networks to support their projects. In tracing these submerged stories, Aronova reveals encounters that profoundly shaped our knowledge of the past, reminding us that it is often the forgotten parts of history that are the most revealing.
Elena Aronova is assistant professor of the history of science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the coeditor of Osiris, Volume 32: Data Histories and Science Studies during the Cold War and Beyond: Paradigms Defected.
PrefaceIntroduction Russia as Method1 The Quest for Scientific History Two Unity of Science MovementsPositivism, History, and Henri Berr’s Historical SynthesisHistorical Synthesis and the History of ScienceThe Internationalist Politics of Synthesis2 Scientific History and the Russian Locale Russia and the WestRussian Historiography on the World StageMarxism and HistoryThe Great BreakBukharin and the History of ScienceLondon 19313 Nikolai Vavilov, Genogeography, and History’s Past Future The Geographies of History and the Genetic ArchiveThe Mendeleev of BiologyVavilov’s Genogeography and the Bolsheviks’ GeopoliticsA “New Kind of History”The Politics of History4 Julian Huxley’s Cold Wars Julian Huxley’s Two CareersA Journey to a Utopian FutureThe Crisis in Soviet Genetics and Julian Huxley’s Cold WarsHuxley’s Evolutionary History5 The UNESCO “History of Mankind: Cultural and Scientific Development” Project History by CommitteeFebvre’s Cahiers: Historical Journals and the Making of Historical KnowledgeCold War Internationalism and the Writing of History6 Information Socialism, Historical Informatics, and the Markets Bernal’s Information Socialism: From London 1931 to Cold War America, via RussiaEnvisioning History as Data ScienceHistorians and ComputersThe Socialist Markets for a Capitalist Data ProductEpilogue Past Futures of the History of ScienceList of Archive AbbreviationsNotesIndex
"Aronova illuminates intellectual cross-fertilizations of science and historiography by zooming in on the practices of scientists and scientist historians. . . . Aronova's thoroughly researched book uncovers largely submerged historiographical approaches that have emphasized the shared features of all modern knowledge-seeking endeavors ranging from the natural sciences to the humanities. It is a significant contribution to our understanding of both the natural sciences and the humanities. Its originality and sometimes surprising comparisons are thought-provoking for historians of all fields of study, and it is to be hoped that they will stimulate especially the much-needed methodological reflection in the historiography of science."
