| Full Text | Towards the end of the last century, historians of science seeking to expose unspoken assumptions about hierarchies focused attention on two buzzwords: periphery (which in practice meant Scandinavia) and popular (then mostly code for Victorian England). These have now been combined in a set of conference essays, Popularizing Science and Technology in the European Periphery, 1800–2000, which loops around the entire continental rim, although still largely ignoring the rest of the world. Chronologically, apart from Matiana Gonza´ lez-Silva’s subtle exploration of newspaper reports on genetics in post-dictatorship Spain, it remains anchored in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
As several of the authors comment, their title now has an old-fashioned ring signalling double marginalization by suggesting that (and here I paraphrase Jonathan Topham) the main events were taking place elsewhere. In his fine introductory essay, Topham addresses this shared unease through a nuanced investigation of ‘popular’ as an actors’ category that itself needs to be contextualized.
This is a valuable approach to this particular version of problems arising from shifting vocabulary (‘nature’ and ‘science’ are other obvious examples), although as a strategic move it automatically precludes considering works that appeared before cheap printing
facilitated mass publishing: in what category should writers such as Galileo, Bernard de la Fontenelle or Benjamin Martin be placed?
Throughout the volume, authors explore not only the meanings but also the aims of popularization in different areas of nineteenth-century Europe. In Belgium and Italy, for example, popular science was recruited politically to consolidate the progressive, unified nature of a recently formed nation, whereas in Sweden – characterized by Johan Kärnfelt as a small peripheral country that lagged behind – scientists were trying to extend their influence both inside and
[p. 312]
outside their own communities, partly in order to solicit financial support by advertising their successes.
Another major leitmotif linking this disparate collection is communication: through emphasizing that meaning is inseparable from place and time, from author and audience, historians can remove awkward boundaries delineating popularization from other areas of science. The label ‘knowledge in transit ’ originated by James Secord makes it clear that popularizing science contributes to the creation of scientific knowledge rather than being an inconsequential side-product.
On the other hand, historians of popular science may feel that they are arguing themselves out of a specialization. Books on the history of science are often shelved in sections labelled ‘popular science’, suggesting an opportunity for us to be more reflective on how we too participate in a larger scientific project.
With their varied reflections on style and communication, these essays reinforced my personal discomfort at being a native English-speaker: fifteen scholars historiographically consigned to the European periphery felt the need to communicate in my language rather than theirs. Several authors discreetly point out that adopting English terms imposes interpretative constraints. In her admirably reflective and analytically wide-ranging article, Paola Govoni explains why in an Italian context it is wrong to use the literal translation of popular science (scienza popolare); similarly, but for different reasons, Ka¨ rnfelt objects to using the Swedish word popula¨rvetenskap.
In contrast with such fine-grained analyses of what it means to be popular, only a few contributors tackle the implications of relegation to a periphery. In his thoughtful piece on popularization through theatrical performance, Ga´bor Pallo´ introduces a welcome reference to more recent network theories by regarding Berlin as an influential regional centre linked to other important localities in the German world of science, such as Budapest and Vienna. Some writers opt for mapping one notion onto the other, making both refer to distinctions between a core elite that generates knowledge and a passive, distanced set of consumers. More interestingly, Govoni and Palmira Fontes da Costa examine the status of women in different contexts, teasing out their conflicted roles as popularizers at the time as well as their relative neglect in the present.
In their conclusion, the three editors remark that a huge reserve of fascinating primary material survives almost untapped in archives scattered across the entire European continent. The authors of this collection are to be congratulated not only on their thorough research, but also on highlighting the existence of this great historical heritage. Historians thrive by finding new ways of thinking about old facts, but there are always new facts waiting to be found and explored.
PATRICIA FARA
University of Cambridge
|
