Science without Frontiers. Cosmopolitanism, National Interests, and Learned Culture, 1870-1940. (2016)
In the half-century before the Great War, collaborative international ventures in science became increasingly common. The trend, manifested in scientific congresses and attempts to establish agreement on physical units and systems of nomenclature, had important consequences. One was the fear of information overload. How were scientists to keep abreast of the growing volume of books, journals, and reports? How were they to do so in an era without a common language? Responses to these challenges helped to foster new departures in cataloguing, bibliography, and an interest in Esperanto and other constructed languages. By 1914 they had also become involved in wider movements that promoted communication as a force for peace. The Great War dealt a severe blow to these “universalist” aspirations, and the postwar reordering of international science did little to resurrect them. A “national turn” during the 1920s took a darker turn in the 1930s, as totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany, and Spain associated science ever more closely with national interests. Although the Second World War further undermined scientific internationalism, the vision of science as part of a world culture open to all soon resurfaced, notably in UNESCO. As an ideal, it remains with us today, in ventures for universal access to information made possible by digitization and the World Wide Web. The challenge in the twenty-first century is how best to turn ideal into reality.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Chapter
Filippo Maria Paladini;
(2021)
Congressi degli scienziati, cioè di medici (Padova e Venezia, via Milano, 1842-47)
(/isis/citation/CBB865626934/)
Chapter
Fabio D'Angelo;
(2021)
Discutere di scienza sorseggiando un caffè. Il congresso di Padova nell’era del viaggio di diporto
(/isis/citation/CBB225667577/)
Chapter
Luigi Lacchè;
(2020)
La “Società dei Giureconsulti”. Per uno studio su congressi, azione collettiva e “canone eclettico” tra Restaurazione e Risorgimento
(/isis/citation/CBB415487936/)
Chapter
Marco Meriggi;
(2021)
Scienziati a congresso nel Veneto asburgico (1842, 1847). Un bilancio
(/isis/citation/CBB794170793/)
Book
Maria Pia Casalena;
Valeria Mogavero;
(2020)
Scienziati italiani a congresso nel Veneto asburgico (1842, 1847), I
(/isis/citation/CBB358341499/)
Chapter
Steven C. Soper;
(2021)
La società civile ai congressi degli scienziati italiani
(/isis/citation/CBB300171900/)
Chapter
Tiziana Plebani;
(2021)
Il tributo del nono congresso degli scienziati a Marco Polo: una storia di oblio e resistenza
(/isis/citation/CBB978546986/)
Chapter
Carlo G. Lacaita;
(2020)
Scienza, modernità e politica nei congressi degli scienziati italiani
(/isis/citation/CBB007182583/)
Chapter
Marianne Klemun;
(2021)
“Spaces in Between”: Political, National and Epistemological Barriers and Bridges. Meetings of German Naturalists, Austria and the Congresses of Italian Scientists in Padua (1842) and Venice (1847)
(/isis/citation/CBB887970976/)
Chapter
Fabio Forgione;
(2021)
Le carte del congresso di Venezia del 1847: storia e inventario
(/isis/citation/CBB473750037/)
Book
Maria Pia Casalena;
Valeria Mogavero;
(2021)
Scienziati italiani a congresso nel Veneto asburgico (1842, 1847), II
(/isis/citation/CBB773307330/)
Chapter
Maria Pia Casalena;
(2020)
I lumi d’Italia e d’Europa a Padova e a Venezia
(/isis/citation/CBB635016306/)
Book
Crawford, Elisabeth T.;
Olff-Nathan, Josiane;
(2005)
La science sous influence: l'université de Strasbourg enjeu des conflits franco-allemands, 1872--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001024539/)
Thesis
Vera, Hector;
(2012)
The Social Life of Measures Metrication in the United States and Mexico, 1789--2004
(/isis/citation/CBB001561019/)
Book
Laurent Mazliak;
Rossana Tazzioli;
(2021)
Mathematical Communities in the Reconstruction After the Great War 1918–1928: Trajectories and Institutions
(/isis/citation/CBB875170225/)
Book
Riehm, Elaine McKinnon;
Hoffman, Frances;
(2011)
Turbulent Times in Mathematics: The Life of J. C. Fields and the History of the Fields Medal
(/isis/citation/CBB001213651/)
Article
Kamiel Mobach;
Ulrike Felt;
(2022)
On the Entanglement of Science and Europe at CERN: The Temporal Dynamics of a Coproductive Relationship
(/isis/citation/CBB148934545/)
Book
Dario Generali;
(2016)
Le Radici della Razionalità Critica: Saperi, Pratiche, Teleologie. Studi offerti a Fabio Minazzi
(/isis/citation/CBB543052276/)
Book
Alfonso De Nardo;
(2018)
Uomini e boschi: il bosco e le aree interne nella questione meriodionale
(/isis/citation/CBB327786623/)
Book
Edoardo Boria;
(2020)
Storia della cartografia in Italia dall'Unità a oggi: tra scienza, società e progetti di potere
(/isis/citation/CBB169419862/)
Be the first to comment!