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Applied Science

Knowledge, Modernity, and Britain's Public Realm

Robert Bud author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:28th Mar '24

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Applied Science cover

Bud explores the rise and fall of 'applied science' as a category of thought shaped by scientists and laity alike.

Robert Bud explores the rise and fall of 'applied science' as a class of scientific thought and practice. UK focussed, the study has international implications. Over two centuries, lay actors and scientists interacted through politics, stories and institutions to shape a category that would eventually fade in favour of 'technology'.For almost two centuries, the category of 'applied science' was widely taken to be both real and important. Then, its use faded. How could an entire category of science appear and disappear? By taking a longue durée approach to British attitudes across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Robert Bud explores the scientific and cultural trends that led to such a dramatic rise and fall. He traces the prospects and consequences that gave the term meaning, from its origins to its heyday as an elixir to cure many of the economic, cultural, and political ills of the UK, eventually overtaken by its competitor, 'technology'. Bud examines how 'applied science' was shaped by educational and research institutions, sociotechnical imaginaries, and political ideologies and explores the extent to which non-scientific lay opinion, mediated by politicians and newspapers, could become a driver in the classification of science.

ISBN: 9781009365239

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 627g

342 pages