Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War
Increasingly, scholars in the humanities are calling for a reengagement with the natural sciences. Taking their cues from recent breakthroughs in genetics and the neurosciences, advocates of “big history” are reassessing long-held assumptions about the very definition of history, its methods, and its evidentiary base. In Scientific History, Elena Aronova maps out historians’ continuous engagement with the methods, tools, values, and scale of the natural sciences by examining several waves of their experimentation that surged highest at perceived times of trouble, from the crisis-ridden decades of the early twentieth century to the ruptures of the Cold War. 

The book explores the intertwined trajectories of six intellectuals and the larger programs they set in motion: Henri Berr (1863–1954), Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943), Julian Huxley (1887–1975), and John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971). Though they held different political views, spoke different languages, and pursued different goals, these thinkers are representative of a larger motley crew who joined the techniques, approaches, and values of science with the writing of history, and who created powerful institutions and networks to support their projects. 

In tracing these submerged stories, Aronova reveals encounters that profoundly shaped our knowledge of the past, reminding us that it is often the forgotten parts of history that are the most revealing.
1137612533
Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War
Increasingly, scholars in the humanities are calling for a reengagement with the natural sciences. Taking their cues from recent breakthroughs in genetics and the neurosciences, advocates of “big history” are reassessing long-held assumptions about the very definition of history, its methods, and its evidentiary base. In Scientific History, Elena Aronova maps out historians’ continuous engagement with the methods, tools, values, and scale of the natural sciences by examining several waves of their experimentation that surged highest at perceived times of trouble, from the crisis-ridden decades of the early twentieth century to the ruptures of the Cold War. 

The book explores the intertwined trajectories of six intellectuals and the larger programs they set in motion: Henri Berr (1863–1954), Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943), Julian Huxley (1887–1975), and John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971). Though they held different political views, spoke different languages, and pursued different goals, these thinkers are representative of a larger motley crew who joined the techniques, approaches, and values of science with the writing of history, and who created powerful institutions and networks to support their projects. 

In tracing these submerged stories, Aronova reveals encounters that profoundly shaped our knowledge of the past, reminding us that it is often the forgotten parts of history that are the most revealing.
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Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War

Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War

by Elena Aronova
Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War

Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War

by Elena Aronova

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$48.99 

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Overview

Increasingly, scholars in the humanities are calling for a reengagement with the natural sciences. Taking their cues from recent breakthroughs in genetics and the neurosciences, advocates of “big history” are reassessing long-held assumptions about the very definition of history, its methods, and its evidentiary base. In Scientific History, Elena Aronova maps out historians’ continuous engagement with the methods, tools, values, and scale of the natural sciences by examining several waves of their experimentation that surged highest at perceived times of trouble, from the crisis-ridden decades of the early twentieth century to the ruptures of the Cold War. 

The book explores the intertwined trajectories of six intellectuals and the larger programs they set in motion: Henri Berr (1863–1954), Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943), Julian Huxley (1887–1975), and John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971). Though they held different political views, spoke different languages, and pursued different goals, these thinkers are representative of a larger motley crew who joined the techniques, approaches, and values of science with the writing of history, and who created powerful institutions and networks to support their projects. 

In tracing these submerged stories, Aronova reveals encounters that profoundly shaped our knowledge of the past, reminding us that it is often the forgotten parts of history that are the most revealing.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226761411
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 04/02/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Preface


Introduction

Russia as Method


1    The Quest for Scientific History

Two Unity of Science Movements

Positivism, History, and Henri Berr’s Historical Synthesis

Historical Synthesis and the History of Science

The Internationalist Politics of Synthesis


2    Scientific History and the Russian Locale

Russia and the West

Russian Historiography on the World Stage

Marxism and History

The Great Break

Bukharin and the History of Science

London 1931


3    Nikolai Vavilov, Genogeography, and History’s Past Future

The Geographies of History and the Genetic Archive

The Mendeleev of Biology

Vavilov’s Genogeography and the Bolsheviks’ Geopolitics

A “New Kind of History”

The Politics of History


4    Julian Huxley’s Cold Wars

Julian Huxley’s Two Careers

A Journey to a Utopian Future

The Crisis in Soviet Genetics and Julian Huxley’s Cold Wars

Huxley’s Evolutionary History


5    The UNESCO “History of Mankind: Cultural and Scientific Development” Project

History by Committee

Febvre’s Cahiers: Historical Journals and the Making of Historical Knowledge

Cold War Internationalism and the Writing of History


6    Information Socialism, Historical Informatics, and the Markets

Bernal’s Information Socialism: From London 1931 to Cold War America, via Russia

Envisioning History as Data Science

Historians and Computers

The Socialist Markets for a Capitalist Data Product


Epilogue

Past Futures of the History of Science


List of Archive Abbreviations


Notes


Index

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