The Social History of British Science: After the Harvest?

Not too long ago social history was regarded as, and arguably was, a rather effete enterprise feeding on the crumbs dropped at the feast of mainstream political, economic and intellectual history. If social history per se was rather quaint or lacking in coherence, the idea of a social history of science was beyond the pale. The situation today is very different, of course. Social history has joined the pantheon of respectable historical endeavour, not as part of history (let alone the residuum) but as 'all history from the social point of view'.' And the social history of science has become sufficiently visible to arouse the concern of some historians of science that their subject is in danger of losing its science.2 Nevertheless, the study of science as a social institution is here to stay, sustained not only by historical concerns but by contemporary interest in the relationship between the social, economic and political changes wrought by, and reflected in, modern science and technology.