The savant and the state : science and cultural politics in nineteenth-century France /

Fox, Robert, 1938-

The savant and the state : science and cultural politics in nineteenth-century France / Robert Fox. - Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, (c)2012. - 1 online resource (424 pages). - The Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science .

Includes bibliographies and index.

""Cover""; ""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Introduction""; ""CHAPTER 1 Science and the New Order""; ""The Return of the Bourbons""; ""Patronage, Authority, and the Profession of Science""; ""Science and the Industrial Age""; ""A Philosophy for the Times: The Roots of Positivism""; ""CHAPTER 2 Voices on the Periphery""; ""Academies and Societies""; ""The Devotee: Nature, Learning, and Locality""; ""Science and Decentralization""; ""The Triumph of the Center""; ""CHAPTER 3 Science, Bureaucracy, and the Empire""; ""The Trials of Academic Science""; ""Education, Industry, and the Imperial State"" ""The Bureaucracy of Learning""""The Roots of Academic Reform""; ""CHAPTER 4 Science, Philosophy, and the Culture of Secularism""; ""The Midcentury: Conformity and Dissent in French Philosophy""; ""The Nature of Life: Pasteur�Pouchet Revisited""; ""The Radical Synthesis and Its Enemies""; ""A Faith for the Age: The Religion of Humanity""; ""CHAPTER 5 Science for All""; ""Fashioning the Audience""; ""Masters of the Mass Market: Flammarion and Figuier""; ""The Spoken Word""; ""Broader Audiences, Bigger Stakes""; ""CHAPTER 6 The Public Face of Republican Science"" ""The Savant at War and Peace""""Countercurrents: Science in the Catholic Tradition""; ""The Republic of the Savants""; ""Fin de Si�cle: From Inspiration to Anxiety""; ""Conclusion""; ""Appendix A: The French System of Education and Research""; ""Appendix B: Exchange Rates and Incomes in Nineteenth-Century France""; ""Abbreviations""; ""Notes""; ""Bibliographical Note""; ""Index""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""J""; ""K""; ""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""Q""; ""R""; ""S""; ""T""; ""U""; ""V""; ""W""; ""Z""; ""Illustrations for following page""

"There has been a tendency to view science in nineteenth-century France as the exclusive territory of the nation's leading academic centers and the powerful Paris-based administrators who controlled them. Ministries and the great savants and institutions of the capital seem to have defined the field, while historians have ignored or glossed over traditions on the periphery of science. In The Savant and the State, Robert Fox charts new historiographical territory by synthesizing the practices and thought of state-sanctioned scientists and those of independent communities of savants and commentators with very different political, religious, and cultural priorities. Fox provides a comprehensive history of the public face of French science from the Bourbon Restoration to the outbreak of the Great War. Following the Enlightenment, many different interests competed to define the role of science and technology in French society. Political and religious conservatives tended to blame the scientific community for upsetting traditional values and, implicitly, delivering France into the hands of revolutionary extremists and Napoleonic bureaucrats. Scientists, for their part, embraced the belief that observation and experimentation offered the surest way to the knowledge and wisdom on which the welfare of society depended. This debate, Fox argues, became a contest for the hearts and minds of the French citizenry."--Project Muse.



9781421408781


Science--History--France--19th century.
Science and state--History--France--19th century.
Science--History--France--19th century.
Science and state--History--France--19th century.


Electronic Books.

Q127 / .S283 2012