Science under Control
The French Academy of Sciences 1795–1914

This book examines French science in the 19th Century under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences.

Maurice Crosland (Author)

9780521524759, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 June 2002

476 pages, 20 b/w illus.
23.5 x 19 x 2.5 cm, 0.799 kg

"On the whole, this book clarifies and considerably enriches our knowledge of the functioning of the French research system in the nineteenth-century and of the structuring roles that the academy played up to the Second Empire....Because of the quality of its erudirion and its wealth of precise information, building on the decades of scholarship that the author has dedicated to the history of French Science, it will no doubt remain for a long time a major reference work." Camille Limoges, Isis

The greatest ambition of any moderately successful nineteenth-century French scientist was to become a member of the Academy of Sciences. Science under Control is the first major study, in any language, of this elite institution, in a period which began with such influential figures as Laplace and Cuvier and extended to the time of Louis Pasteur and Henri Poincare. The book attempts to remove the veil of mystery and misunderstanding which has shrouded this key institution and its procedures. The French government exercised political, financial and bureaucratic control over the Academy, and the Academy in turn sat in judgement over all serious scientific production. Only with its approval could the work of French scientists win acceptance and their careers advance. The book provides a case study of carefully regulated scientific production encouraged yet constrained within a system of reports, prizes and elections.

1. Science in France
2. The structure of the Academy
3. The functioning of the Academy: some possible roles
4. Science divided: the sections
5. The Academicians
6. Elections: 'green fever'
7. Registration, judgement and reward
8. The printed word
9. The Academy under Government control
10. Outsiders: the scientific fringe and the public
11. The international context
12. The control of the Academy of Science.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]