ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

What Was History of Science in Britain after 1959?

• In Event: What is the History of Science? Part 2

English Abstract

In 1960 history of science was only practiced as an academic subject in Britain at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford as well as University College London. By 1970 there were flourishing groups (operating under different names) at Imperial College as well as Leeds, Lancaster, Edinburgh, Manchester, Aberdeen, Sussex, Durham, Leicester and Open Universities among others. While some of this increase can be attributed to the general expansion of higher education in Britain during that decade, it is noticeable that it occurred in the wake of the ‘Two Cultures’ controversy. This followed the lecture of that title delivered in 1959 by C.P. Snow and F.R. Leavis’s devastating critique. Certainly, the establishment of the Department of History of Science and Technology at Imperial was framed in Two Cultures terms. There was clearly an expectation that history of science (and its cognate subjects) would in some sense address the problems identified (rightly or wrongly) between science and the humanities, broadly construed in the debate. In practice this did not happen (or at least effectively) and this paper will seek to provide an overview of what historians of science actually did during that decade and in the ensuing years.

Author

• Frank AJL James, University College London