scholarly journals Another global history of science: making space for India and China

BJHS Themes ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 115-143
Author(s):  
ASIF SIDDIQI

AbstractDrawing from recent theoretical insights on the circulation of knowledge, this article, grounded in real-world examples, illustrates the importance of ‘the site’ as an analytical heuristic for revealing processes, movements and connections illegible within either nation-centred histories or comparative national studies. By investigating place instead of project, the study reframes the birth of modern rocket developments in both China and India as fundamentally intertwined within common global networks of science. I investigate four seemingly disconnected sites in the US, India, China and Ukraine, each separated by politics but connected and embedded in conduits that enabled the flow of expertise during (and in some cases despite) the Cold War. By doing so, it is possible to reconstruct an exemplar of a kind of global history of science, some of which takes place in China, some in India, and some elsewhere, but all of it connected. There are no discrete beginnings or endings here, merely points of intervention to take stock of processes in action. Each site produces objects and knowledge that contribute to our understanding of the other sites, furthering the overall narrative on Chinese and Indian efforts to formalize a ‘national’ space programme. The focus on these four sites reveals a global network of science in motion, linked by the common goals of building powerful rockets to explore space.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bobby V. Reddy

Big Tech has flourished on the US public markets in recent years with numerous blue-chip IPOs, from Google and Facebook, to new kids on the block such as Snap, Zoom, and Airbnb. A key trend is the burgeoning use of dual-class stock. Dual-class stock enables founders to divest of equity and generate finance for growth through an IPO, without losing the control they desire to pursue their long-term, market-disrupting visions. Bobby Reddy scrutinises the global history of dual-class stock, evaluates the conceptual and empirical evidence on dual-class stock, and assesses the approach of the London Stock Exchange and ongoing UK regulatory reforms to dual-class stock. A policy roadmap is presented that optimally supports the adoption of dual-class stock while still protecting against its potential abuses, which will more effectively attract high-growth, innovative companies to the UK equity markets, boost the economy, and unleash the true potential of 'founders without limits'.


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen E. Swanson

The origins and use of national space rhetoric used by NASA, the US government, and the media in America began during the Cold War era and relied, in part, on religious imagery to convey a message of exploration and conquest. The concept of space as a “New Frontier” was used in political speech, television, and advertising to reawaken a sense of manifest destiny in postwar America by reviving notions of religious freedom, courage, and exceptionalism—the same ideals that originally drove expansionist boosters first to the New World and then to the West. Using advertisements, political speeches, NASA documents, and other media, this paper will demonstrate how this rhetoric served to reinforce a culture held by many Americans who maintained a long tradition of believing that they were called on by God to settle New Frontiers and how this culture continues to influence how human spaceflight is portrayed today.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-312
Author(s):  
Wen-Qing Ngoei

This essay examines how the history of the Cold War in Southeast Asia has shaped, and will likely continue to shape, the current Sino-US rivalry in the region. Expert commentary today typically focuses on the agendas and actions of the two big powers, the United States and China, which actually risks missing the bigger picture. During the Cold War, leaders of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) played a critical role in containing Chinese influence, shaping the terms of Sino-US competition and rapprochement, and deepening the US presence in Southeast Asia. The legacy of ASEAN’s foreign relations during and since the Cold War imposes constraints on Chinese regional ambitions today, which militates against the popular notion that Chinese hegemony in East and Southeast Asia is inevitable. This essay underscores that current analyses of the brewing crisis in and around the South China Sea must routinely look beyond the two superpowers to the under-appreciated agency of small- and middle-sized ASEAN actors who, in reality, are the ones who hold the fate of the region in their hands.


Itinerario ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonella Romano ◽  
Stéphane Van Damme

Through its focus on the question of circulation, world history attained a central position amongst the historical configurations in the last decade. Indicative of our fundamentally changing world, the past thereby reveals itself to have been shaped by commercial, human and intellectual flows of global dimension. The history of science has been particularly receptive to such methodological developments, especially with regard to works influenced by a markedly social approach to science and knowledge, which has focused for some time on the analysis of intellectual networks. From the French provincial Enlightenment to Athansius Kircher's circles—including the relationships of patronage of mathematicians and court philosophers—social, intellectual and epistemological configurations have been designed, allowing us to consider different scales in the circulation of knowledge.


Author(s):  
Emily Abrams Ansari

The introduction provides an overview of the history of musical Americanism, from the 1920s to the 1970s, in tandem with an assessment of changing attitudes toward American identity in the United States. It introduces scholarly debates surrounding the Cold War politicization of serialism and tonality and describes the various opportunities for work with government exploited by American composers during the 1950s and 1960s. These opportunities included serving as advisers to the State Department, the US Information Agency, and organizations funded by the CIA, as well as touring overseas as government-funded cultural ambassadors. These contexts establish the basis for the book’s argument that the Cold War presented both challenges and opportunities for Americanist composers that would ultimately result in a rebranding of their style.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-695
Author(s):  
JONATHAN SIMON

Although maybe not the most fashionable area of study today, French science has a secure place in the classical canon of the history of science. Like the Scientific Revolution and Italian science at the beginning of the seventeenth century, French science, particularly eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century French science, remains a safe, albeit conservative, bet in terms of history-of-science teaching and research. The classic trope of the passage of the flame of European science from Italy to Britain and France in the seventeenth and then eighteenth centuries is well established in overviews of the field. Specializing in research in this area is not, therefore, unreasonable as a career choice if you are aiming for a history-of-science position in Europe or even in the US. The Académie (royale) des sciences, with its state-sponsored model of collective research, provides a striking counterpoint to the amateur, more individualistic functioning of London's Royal Society – a foretaste of modernity in the institutionalization of science. Clearly naive, such a representation of French science serves as a good initial framework on which to hang half a century of critical historical research. If proof of the continued interest for eighteenth-century French science is needed, we can cite the Web-based project around Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie currently in progress under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences. The large number of publications in the history of French science (in English as well as French) make it unreasonable to pick out one or two for special attention here. But what about history of science in France and the academic community that practises this discipline today? Here, I offer a very personal view and analysis of this community, trying to underline contrasts with the history of science in the UK and the US.


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