Situating Science in Global History: Local Exchanges and Networks of Circulation

In response to increasing academic interest, Cambridge University Press launched a new journal in 2006, entitled the Journal of Global History. To inaugurate the endeavour, the editors asked economic historian Patrick O'Brien to write an introductory essay to serve as a prolegomenon for this newly invigorated field of study. O'Brien began by noting that it is no mere coincidence that interest in global history should be growing, given the global challenges entailed in current-day economic, political and environmental issues. From this perspective, we might take “global history” to refer both to the field's geographical reach and its attempts to relate a global range of seemingly diverse phenomena. Both understandings require us to stretch beyond the narrow specialisms in which we were trained and invite increasing willingness to collaborate. Along these lines, O'Brien applauded those historians who have reached outside their own discipline to draw on the insights and methods of the natural sciences, as well as natural scientists whose work is shedding new light on historical development.</jats:p

Exploring global history through the lens of history of chemistry:Materials, identities and governance

As global history continues to take shape as an important field of research, its interactive relationships with the history of science, technology, and medicine are recognized and being investigated as significant areas of concern. Strangely, despite the fact that it is key to understanding so many of the subjects that are central to global history and would itself benefit from a broader geographical perspective, the history of chemistry has largely been left out of this process – particularly for the modern historical period. This article argues for the value of integrating the history of chemistry with global history, not only for understanding the past, but also for thinking about our shared present and future. Toward this end, it (1) explores the various ways in which ‘chemistry’ has and can be defined, with special attention to discussions of ‘indigenous knowledge systems’; (2) examines the benefits of organizing historical inquiry around the evolving sociomaterial identities of substances; (3) considers ways in which the concepts of ‘chemical governance’ and ‘chemical expertise’ can be expanded to match the complexities of global history, especially in relation to environmental issues, climate change, and pollution; and (4) seeks to sketch the various geographies entailed in bringing the history of chemistry together with global histories. </jats:p

Producing (in) Europe and Asia, 1750-1850

This essay argues for understanding and investigating the history of production, not primarily as a quantifiable economic phenomenon, but as a history of practice that involves the human senses, culture, governance, and material engagement. The vehicle it uses to make its case focuses on a brief examination of production cycles involving salts in various parts of Eurasia during the century that runs from approximately 1750 to 1850. The essay's approach suggests a history of production in Eurasia that was both locally variegated and transregionally networked. It further involved the interaction between people and their sociomaterial environments, the latter understood as the evolving outcome of interplay between material elements and processes; culturally rooted tastes and values; and variously organized efforts to stimulate, manage, and pursue cycles of production and use. This essay further reflects on how contemporary commentators and present-day historians have (re)configured the geography of these practices in a way that emphasizes divergence between Europe and Asia. Part of this reflection involves looking at what can happen when the historical investigation of production is based on economic analysis. So too does it involve thinking about the potential pitfalls of framing comparative histories

Instruments of Science and Citizenship: Science Education for Dutch Orphans During the Late Eighteenth Century.

One of the two most extensive instrument collections in the Netherlands during the second half of the eighteenth century—rivaling the much better known collection at the University of Leiden—belonged to an orphanage in The Hague that was specially established to mold hand-picked orphans into productive citizens. (The other was housed at the Mennonite Seminary in Amsterdam, for use in the education of its students.) The educational program at this orphanage, one of three established by the Fundatie van Renswoude, grew out of a marriage between the socially-oriented generosity of the wealthy Baroness van Renswoude and the pedagogical vision of the institute’s director and head teacher—a vision that fit with the larger movement of oeconomic patriotism. Oeconomic patriotism, similar to ‘improvement’ and oeconomic movements in other European countries and their colonies, sought to tie the investigation of nature to an improvement of society’s material and moral well-being. Indeed, it was argued that these two facets of society should be viewed as inseparable from each other, distinguishing the movement from more modern conceptions of economics. While a number of the key figures in this Dutch movement also became prominent Patriots during the revolutionary period at the end of the century, fighting against the House of Orange, they did not have a monopoly on oeconomic ideas of societal improvement. This is demonstrated by the fact that an explicitly pro-Orangist society, Mathesis Scientiarum Genitrix, was organized in 1785 to teach science and mathematics to poor boys and orphans for very similar reasons: to turn them into productive and useful citizens. As was the case with the Fundatie van Renswoude, a collection of instruments was assembled to help make this possible. This story is of interest because it discusses a hitherto under-examined use to which science education was put during this period, by revealing the link between such programs and the highly charged question of citizenry

Compound Histories:Materials, Governance and Production, 1760-1840

Compound Histories: Materials, Governance and Production, 1760-1840 explores the intertwined realms of production, governance and materials, placing chemists and chemistry at the center of processes most closely identified with the construction of the modern world

Science and/as work:An introduction to this special issue

This brief essay introduces a special issue dedicated to exploring two themes: “science and work” and “science as work.” Following a brief overview of these two themes, it briefly describes the other contributions to the special issue.</p