Article ID: CBB359565637

Building UNESCO science from the “dark zone”: Joseph Needham, Empire, and the wartime reorganization of international science from China, 1942–6 (2021)

unapi

In recent years historians have revisited the creation of the United Nations (UN) system by highlighting the enduring influence of Empire and recognizing the substantial role of cultural and scientific actors in wartime international diplomacy. The British biochemist Joseph Needham, who participated in the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was one of them. Yet, if historians have recognized his role as the leading architect of the sciences at UNESCO, they still fall short of engaging with the Chinese and imperial geography of his involvement with UNESCO. During the Second World War, Needham was stationed in war-torn China. As director of the Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Office, Needham not only organized Sino-British scientific cooperation against the Japanese invasion, but his mission inspired his engagement for a reform of international science and fueled an international campaign that led him to become the director of UNESCO’s Natural Science division after the war. By reconstructing his campaign in context, this article seeks to demonstrate how the imperial and transnational scientific networks of the wartime era fostered the creation of a scientific mandate for UNESCO. It situates Needham’s activism and ideas in the context of the Sino-Japanese war, imperial wartime technocracy, and China’s scientific nationalism. In so doing, it reveals a string of forgotten partners from China and the British Empire. Their conception of a reorganized international science and shared belief in modern science and its ideal of universality shaped Needham’s vision for science at UNESCO, while their activism contributed decisively to the success of his campaign. This inquiry hence participates in recent efforts to challenge the existing Eurocentrism corseting the historiography of the UN and expands the historiography of scientific internationalism beyond Europe and North America. Importantly, it also contributes to uncovering the technocratic ties established between Empire and the UN system from its onset.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB359565637/

Similar Citations

Book Lynn Meskell; (2018)
A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace (/isis/citation/CBB423759431/)

Article Amit Prasad; (2018)
Taj Mahal, Circulations of Science, and (post) Colonial Present (/isis/citation/CBB035301314/)

Thesis Wu, Shellen Xiao; (2010)
Underground Empires: German Imperialism and the Introduction of Geology in China, 1860--1919 (/isis/citation/CBB001567215/)

Book Daniel Asen; David Luesink; William H. Schneider; Zhang Daqing; (2019)
China and the Globalization of Biomedicine (/isis/citation/CBB060462846/)

Thesis Sakura Marcelle Christmas; (2016)
The Cartographic Steppe: Mapping Environment and Ethnicity in Japan's Imperial Borderlands (/isis/citation/CBB827878446/)

Article Xiaoxing Jin; (2022)
The Evolution of Social Darwinism in China, 1895–1930 (/isis/citation/CBB079283075/)

Book Hilary A. Smith; (2017)
Forgotten Disease: Illnesses Transformed in Chinese Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB891109049/)

Article Cheang, Sarah; (2006)
Women, Pets, and Imperialism: The British Pekingese Dog and Nostalgia for Old China (/isis/citation/CBB000660019/)

Book Rebecca E. Karl; (2017)
The Magic of Concepts: History and the Economic in Twentieth-Century China (/isis/citation/CBB898413640/)

Article Andersen, Caspar; (July 2017)
Internationalism and Engineering in UNESCO during the End Game of Empire, 1943–68 (/isis/citation/CBB843350558/)

Authors & Contributors
Christmas, Sakura Marcelle
Andersen, Caspar
Pereira, Hugo Silveira
Frank, Mark E.
Jin, Xiaoxing
Girouard, Kim
Concepts
Imperialism
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Science and politics
Eurocentrism
Colonialism
Science and culture
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
21st century
Places
China
Japan
Great Britain
Germany
United Kingdom
Inner Mongolia (China)
Institutions
UNESCO
Taj Mahal
Johns Hopkins University
United Nations
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment