Nationalism and Internationalism in Science, 1880–1939

Elisabeth Crawford's new study departs from the commonly held notion that universalism and internationalism are inherent features of science. Showing how the rise of scientific organizations around the turn of the century had centered on national scientific enterprises, Dr. Crawford argues that scientific activities of the late-nineteenth century were an integral part of the emergence of the nation-state in Europe. Internationalism in science, both in theory and practice, began to hold sway over scientists only when economic relations, transportation and communication facilities began to transgress national boundaries.
The founding of the Nobel Prize in 1901 confirmed the internationalization of science. The workings of the Nobel institution rested on an international community of scientists who forwarded candidates for the prizes. Along with the candidates and eventual prizewinners, they constituted the Nobel population, which in the fields of chemistry and physics between 1901 and 1939 numbered over one thousand scientists of greater and lesser renown from twenty-five countries.
Dr. Crawford uses this Nobel population for biographical studies that shed new light on national and international science between 1901 and 1939. Her four studies examine critically the following problems: the upsurge of nationalism among scientists of warring nations during and after World War I and its consequences for internationalism in science; the existence of a scientific center and periphery in Central Europe; the elite conception of science in the United States and its role in the success of the national scientific enterprise; and the effective use of the Nobel prizes in an organization whose primary purpose was to further national science. Two introductions provide the necessary background for the studies by discussing research methodology and both national and international science between 1880 and 1914.