Read some history of science this week!
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.010012
Every now and again, I walk from my office at the American Center for Physics to visit the Niels Bohr Library , which is on the same floor. There, arrayed on racks that cover a wall, is the library’s collection of current journals, magazines, and newsletters. The journals I always browse first are the ones devoted to the history of science and technology.
My interest in history, not just the history of science, has two sources. First, like most physicists, I want to understand the workings of nature; that quest for understanding also extends to societies, past and present.
Second, in researching their works, historians strive to discover the significance and meaning of past events; in writing their works, historians—the good ones, that is—tell compelling tales. I read history for pleasure.
Today’s library browsing yielded a prize. The current issue of Isis, the journal of the History of Science Society, has a focus section of essays about the cold war, a period of grim fascination for me. I was born during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. When the revolutions of 1989 ended the war, I was halfway through my first postdoc.
Among the essays is one I was especially pleased to find: “Transnational Science during the Cold War: The Case of Chinese/American Scientists” by Zuoyue Wang of California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. I’d heard Zuoyue present an earlier version of the essay last November at the National Air and Space Museum’s series of colloquia on contemporary history. The full article is available for free on the Isis website. As a foretaste, here’s the abstract:
This essay examines the experiences of about five thousand Chinese students/scientists in the United States after the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. These experiences illustrate the often hidden transnational movements of people, instruments, and ideas in science and technology across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. I argue that those hundreds who returned to China represented a partial “Americanization” of Chinese science and technology, while the rest of the group staying in the United States contributed to a transnationalization of the American scientific community.
Now it’s quite understandable if you don’t share my enthusiasm for learning about NSC-68 , Charter 77 , SS-20s , and other icons of the cold war. Still, I urge you to read some history of science this week. Zuoyue and his fellow historians don’t merely recount what happened. They explain what those events meant and mean.
