The Invisible Industrialist: Manufacture and the Construction of Scientific Knowledge (Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History) - Hardcover

Gaudillière, J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 033364753X ISBN 13: 9780333647530

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998

Synopsis

The Invisible Industrialist discusses the role of industry in the construction of fundamental scientific knowledge. Industrial models of division of labour and industrially-produced instruments and reagents are central to experimental practices today, but they are often perceived as self-evident and thus remain invisible. This book examines the effects of the long standing association between industry and fundamental scientific research through an analysis of case studies taken from the history of physics, of chemistry and of biomedical sciences in the 19th and 20th century. These case studies highlight the role of industry and of industrial methods in the production of standardized instruments and reagents which made possible the stabilization and the diffusion of locally-produced knowledge, and its influence as provider of new organizational patterns and new division of labour within science. This subject is of interest for historians of science, technology and industry, but also to scholars interested in the production of scientific knowledge, in the social impact of science and in science policy studies

About this title

About the Author:

JEAN-PAUL GAUDILLIERE has been Researcher at the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale, Paris since 1993. His current work focuses on the changing relations between laboratory practices and clinical work. He has recently written on postwar cancer research: `Le cancer entre infection et heredite: genes, virus et souris au National Cancer Institute (1937-1977)'.

ILANA LÖWY trained as immunologist: after ten years at the laboratory she shifted to full-time research in science studies. Her main research interests are the history of bacteriology, immunology and cancer research and historiography of biomedical sciences. She published The Polish School of Philosophy of Medicine: From Tytus Chalubinski (1820-1889) to Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), and edited Medicine and Change: Historical and Sociological Studies of Medical Innovation.

Synopsis:

Industrial methods, and industrially produced instruments, reagents and living organisms are central to research activities today. They play a key role in the homogenization and the diffusion of laboratory practices, thus in their transformation into a stable and unproblematic knowledge about the natural world. This book displays the role of industry in the construction of fundamental scientific knowledge through the examination of case studies taken from the history of 19th and 20th-century physics, chemistry and biomedical sciences.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 033364753X
• ISBN 13: 9780333647530
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392
• Editor: Löwy Ilana