Colin Axon wrote:
> This is not actually as earth-shattering as it all seems. Given that more
> than 75% of all humans who have ever walked on the earth in its entire
> existence, are currently alive, so lo and behold, most of the
> science has done in a current life span. This is no great revelation.
No, of course, it is no great revelation. That's not my point either. The
point is that few historians of science seem to be affected by the fact.
Read the journals of other historical specialties: historians of
contemporary political history, historians of music, literary historians,
etc. have massively thrown themselves into the post-1945 period for quite a
while now. Why not historians of science (some notable exceptions can be
made, of course)?
Maybe time is ripe to introduce another factor into the discussion, namely
the `technical language´ factor. Recent science is so technically advanced
(relative to the historical observer, of course), that you need a pretty
advanced technical training if you want to understand the stuff. So, while
the `classical language´ factor keeps the grad students away from most of
the literature prior to approx. 1800-50, the `technical language´ factor
largely keeps them off the post-1945 ground (unless they don´t care about
the technical content at all). What's left? Well, roughly 1800-1950. Pretty
narrow time window, isn't it?
Best regards,
Thomas Soderqvist
Roskilde
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