History of Science

Research in the History of Science at the Department deals mainly with the early modern and modern periods. Current research projects include those exploring aspects of eighteenth-century natural science, scientific publication in the opening decades of the nineteenth century, and the interrelations between science and politics during the twentieth century. This research entails a focus upon complex technical and theoretical questions, occasionally in a very practice-oriented sense. But it also includes a consideration of political, social and cultural questions more generally. There is, in other words, no clear-cut boundary between history of science and other research at the department. The history of medicine engages with the development of biomedicine; the history of social and human sciences with the history of science. The history of education and the history of science are also intimately related.