IsisCB Explore-S!!

Essay Review ID: CBB186419344

What (Good) Is Cultural History for History of Science Today? Perspectives, Challenges, Concerns (2018)

van Damme, Stéphane (Author)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume: 69
Pages: 90-96
Publication date: 2018
Language: English

DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2018.02.003

URI: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368118300475

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Given the unprecedented speed and depth of the transformation apparent in current developments and research trends in the history of science in the last three decades, the moment has undoubtedly come to map them anew. It can be no coincidence that a similar ambition has given rise to several such undertakings in recent years if we think of the volumes of the Cambridge History of Science edited by Ronald Numbers and David Lindberg, and the Oxford Companion by John Heilbron or the recent Histoire des sciences et des savoirs (Daston and Park, 2006; Roy Porter, 1999, Heilbron, 2003; Pestre, 2015). However, this Companion chooses to reject the chronological and geographical organisation adopted by those volumes; it stands out as original for providing an entirely thematic overview of thirty years of research. Encyclopaedic in scope, the book has deep sociological, spatial, and material roots. It charts research themes in detail with contributions from the finest scholars in the field, mostly native anglophone writers. It traces some promising avenues of research that challenge the cultural turn that gave birth to a new history of science thirty years ago. The present essay on this intimidating and stimulating monument of historiography does not spring from nowhere; it reflects the perspective of a French cultural historian of science of the early modern period. As an example of intelligent, innovative, reflexive, and always critical social and cultural history of science, the volume charts out fresh historiographical territories with great originality and imagination, inviting us to take its perspectives seriously. In this article, therefore, I would like to acknowledge the impressive collaborative work in this volume by giving a comprehensive overview of its academic research, while also pointing out some concerns.

...More

Review Of

Book Bernard Lightman (2016) A Companion to the History of Science. unapi

Citation URI

stagingisis.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB186419344

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Essay Review Knight, David; (2013)
Boyle's Books: The Evidence of His Citations / How Modern Science Came into the World: Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough/The Dying and the Doctors: the Medical Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England...

Article Turchetti, Simone; Herran, Néstor; Boudia, Soraya; (2012)
Introduction: Have We Ever Been “Transnational”? Towards a History of Science across and beyond Borders

Article Robert Bud; (2016)
Representing scale: What should be special about the heritage of mass science?

Article Subrata Dasgupta; (2021)
Whiggism, creativity and the historiography of technoscience

Article Sven Dupré; Geert Somsen; (2019)
The History of Knowledge and the Future of Knowledge Societies

Article Carla Nappi; (2017)
Paying Attention: Early Modern Science Beyond Genealogy

Article Joachim L. Dagg; (2017)
How counterfactuals of Red-Queen theory shed light on science and its historiography

Article David Larsson Heidenblad; (2018)
Mapping a New History of the Ecological Turn: The Circulation of Environmental Knowledge in Sweden 1967

Article Thomas Teo; Gordana Jovanović; Martin Dege; (2021)
Motivated historiography: Comments on Wolfgang Schönpflug’s reappraisal of German critical psychology

Article Ana Barahona; (2023)
Erasing borders: a new look at the historiography of science

Article Peter J. T. Morris; Jeffrey I. Seeman; (2022)
The Importance of Plurality and Mutual Respect in the Practice of the History of Chemistry

Article Reinhardt, Carsten; (2010)
Historische Wissenschaftsforschung, heute. Überlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Wissensgesellschaft

Article Paola Radici Colace; (2013)
Il 'mestiere' di storico. La scrittura della storia dall'opinione alla ricostruzione scientifica

Article Agnes Bolinska; Joseph D. Martin; (2021)
The tragedy of the canon; or, path dependence in the history and philosophy of science

Article Wahrig, Bettina; (2009)
Weitwinkel - Nahaufnahme: Zeitperspektiven in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte

Article Pyenson, Lewis; (2008)
Forward Into the Past

Article Smith, Pamela H.; (2009)
Science on the Move: Recent Trends in the History of Early Modern Science

Article Erickson, Mark; (2010)
Why Should I Read Histories of Science?

Article Feest, Uljana; Sturm, Thomas; (2011)
What (Good) Is Historical Epistemology?

Article J. C. Pinto de Oliveira; (2020)
Kuhn, Condorcet, and Comte: On the Justification of the "Old" Historiography of Science