Article ID: CBB513842338

The princess at the conference: Science, pacifism, and Habsburg society (2021)

unapi

Historians are showing increasing interest in scientific internationalism, the notion that science transcends national differences and hence advances peace and cooperation. This notion became particularly popular in the decades around 1900, the heyday of the universal expositions and the so-called first era of globalization. In this article I argue that in order to properly historicize scientific internationalism, it is imperative to understand how actors imagined science to have pacifist effects, and to relate their technoscientific to their geopolitical imaginaries. To illustrate this, I analyze the 1911 novel Der Menschheit Hochgedanken (translated as When Thoughts Will Soar) by the famous Austrian pacifist Baroness Bertha von Suttner. It tells the story of a scientific conference whose participants, by the sheer brilliance of their thought, ward off war and preserve world peace. Relating the novel to von Suttner’s own life experiences, I situate her internationalism in the social texture and international relations of the late Habsburg Empire. It appears that Von Suttner mobilized notions of the pacific effects of science with an eye to preserving both the European system of states and the position of the aristocracy.

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Authors & Contributors
Colleen Lanier-Christensen
Jeanne Oui
Bryan E. Denham
Jan-Peter Voß
Wolfram, Kaiser
Volkan Sayman
Concepts
Science and politics
Science and society
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Globalization; internationalization
Science and war; science and the military
Nationalism
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
Europe
Hungary
France
Austria
Great Britain
South Asia
Institutions
Habsburg, House of
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
World Federation of Scientific Workers
UNESCO
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