Nationalism and Internationalism in Science, 1880–1939
Four Studies of the Nobel Population

This book examines the upsurge of nationalism among scientists of warring nations during and after World War I.

Elisabeth Crawford (Author)

9780521524742, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 July 2002

172 pages, 11 b/w illus. 11 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1 cm, 0.26 kg

"...much more than a mere history of these prizes. She questions the assumption that science is and always has been universal. Scientific internationalism, science as an activity and a social institution, is often confused with scientific universalism, science as an abstract method for establishing universally valid knowledge....Crawford demonstrates that the similarities between American Nobel laureates and nonwinning candidates outweigh the differences, and she rejects the argument that Nobel Prizes constitute objective measures of social stratification in science." Mark Walker, ISIS

The founding of the Nobel Prize in 1901 confirmed the internationalisation of science. The workings of the Nobel institution rested on an international community of scientists who forwarded candidates for the prizes. Along with the candidates and eventual prizewinners, they constituted the Nobel population, which in the fields of chemistry and physics between 1901 and 1939 numbered over one thousand scientist renown from twenty-five countries. Crawford uses this Nobel population for prosopographic studies that shed new light on national and international science between 1901 and 1939. Her four studies examine the following problems: the upsurge of nationalism among scientists of warring nations during and after World War I; the existence of a scientific centre and periphery in Central Europe; the élite conception of science in the United States; and the effective use of the Nobel prizes in an organisation whose primary purpose was to further national science.

List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. Conceptual and Historiographical Issues: 1. Methods for a social history of scientific development
2. First the nation: national and international science, 1880–1914
Part II. Critical and Empirical Studies: 3. Internationalism in science as a casualty of World War I
4. Centre-periphery relations in science: the case of Central Europe
5. National purpose and international symbols: the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society and the Nobel institution
6. Nobel laureates as an élite in American science
Bibliographical essay
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]