The Grudging Modernizer: A Trip to the Middle East and Cold War Social Science

Minerva - The postwar era is generally recognized as a unique moment of impetuous growth of the social sciences, due to the interest of Western internationalist elites in the development of a set...     

A History of Universalism: Conceptions of the Internationality of Science from the Enlightenment to the Cold War

That science is fundamentally universal has been proclaimed innumerable times. But the precise geographical meaning of this universality has changed historically. This article examines conceptions of scientific internationalism from the Enlightenment to the Cold War, and their varying relations to cosmopolitanism, nationalism, socialism, and ‘the West’. These views are confronted with recent tendencies to cast science as a uniquely European product.

The Rise and Demise of the International Council for Science Policy Studies (ICSPS) as a Cold War Bridging Organization

When the journal Minerva was founded in 1962, science and higher educational issues were high on the agenda, lending impetus to the interdisciplinary field of “Science Studies” qua “Science Policy Studies.” As government expenditures for promoting various branches of science increased dramatically on both sides of the East-West Cold War divide, some common issues regarding research management also emerged and with it an interest in closer academic interaction in the areas of history and policy of science. Through a close reading of many early issues of Minerva but also of its later competitor journal Science Studies (now called Social Studies of Science) the paper traces the initial optimism of an academically based Science Studies dialogue across the Cold War divide and the creation in 1971 of the International Commission for Science Policy Studies as a bridging forum, one that Minerva strangely chose to ignore. In this light, attention is drawn to aspects of the often forgotten history of Science Studies in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European block. Reviewed also are several early discussions that are still relevant today: e.g., regarding differing concepts of Big Science, science and democracy, autonomy in higher education and what conditions are necessary to sustain academic freedom and scientific integrity (some of Edward Shils’ primary concerns). Finally, it is noted how the question of quantitative methods to measure scientific productivity lay at the heart of a “Science of Science” movement of the 1960s has re-emerged in a new form integral to the notion of a “Science of Science Policy.”     

Building Bridges: Alan Gregg and Soviet Russia, 1925–1928

Minerva - In December 1927, Alan Gregg,Associate Director of the RockefellerFoundation's Division of Medical Education, setoff from Paris on an exploratory mission toRussia. After a...     

Soviet military maps and archaeological survey in the Samarkand region

In Central Asia, the introduction of mechanised farming and the transformation of the landscape caused by agricultural intensification over the last 50 years have resulted in the massive destruction of archaeological remains. In this paper, we focus on an underestimated and unexploited type of remote sensing for the study of landscape change and anthropic impact on cultural heritage: 1:10,000 Soviet military maps of the 1950s. We present their use in the case study of the Archaeological Map of the Samarkand region. We argue that their precision and the early date at which they were produced make it possible to employ them as a reference tool for systematic survey and archaeological heritage management in Central Asia and throughout the former Soviet Union. We discuss the results of an archaeological survey based on these maps and show how they can be used to evaluate the destruction of archaeological mounds during the last 50 years, by contrasting them with modern satellite imagery.     

The Russian Academy of sciences and the Soviet Academy of sciences: Continuity or disjunction?

Conclusion Although the Russian Academy has not been operating long enough to permit a categorical statement that it will act exactly as the Soviet Academy did, there is now enough information to justify stating that in its structure and stated functions it differs in no significant way from the Soviet Academy which it replaced. While it might well have been weakened, through a decline in its own prestige and through the weakening of the government under which it operates, it is unlikely to be so weakened that it will allow either the democrats and rank-and-file research workers on the one hand, or the new bureaucratic arrangements on the other to get the better of it. While the desperate budgetary situation will almost certainly force the Russian Academy into considerable retrenchment in its research activities, it will continue to be a body of bureaucratically organised and experienced managers of science and will conduct itself accordingly. Those who believe that a high level of participation by the rank-and-file of the staff is essential in the management of science, will see that as a catastrophe for Russian science. Those who believe that particularly in times of stress, bureaucratic skill and experience are of great importance will see it as providing some hope of salvation.