The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology

Today, an increasing number of historians are turning to the history of recent and contemporary science. When doing so, they are confronted with new and unfamiliar methodological and theoretical problems: How to handle the huge amounts of published and unpublished sources? Is it possible to write a synthetic history of recent science? What level of scientific training is necessary to understand recent and contemporary science? Does the lack of historical distance prevent good scholarship? Can (and will) historians of recent science share the turf with other professional groups, such as active scientists, scholars of science and technology studies, and science journalism? How to deal with scientists' and technocrats' constant interference with our work? Whose history are we writing? Whose science? The thirteen contributors to this volume are active researchers in what has been called 'the last frontier' in the history of science.