Scientific History

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."