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.

Geert J. SomsenEmail:

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Geert Somsen   is assistant professor in history of science. After a PhD in the history of chemistry, his current work focuses on socialist conceptions of science in the twentieth century and on scientific internationalism. With Harmke Kamminga, he edited Pursuing the Unity of Science: Scientific Practice and Ideology between the Great War and the Cold War (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming).