In the 1970s and early 1980s, many Westerners wrote enthusiastically about science as practiced in socialist China. They applauded the mobilization of broad sectors of the population for science that truly “served the people.” By the mid‐1980s, revelations about the many horrors of the Cultural Revolution worked to discredit these early, optimistic accounts. At the same time, the post‐Mao privileging of economic development over social revolution now strongly colors almost all analyses of science in socialist China. This essay encourages historians (...) to retrieve the largely discarded rosy accounts of earlier years. Such sources provide insight into the goals of historical actors and challenge us to recognize the specificity and contingency of our own values. Used in tandem with the later sources, they can help us achieve a critical understanding of science in both socialist China and our own historical context. (shrink)

The question of the role of the state has, in one way or another, dominated historical studies of science and technology in modern China, a field that has experienced rapid growth since the early 1980s both inside and outside of China. While Western scholars have focused their analysis on the state control of science and scientists, Chinese historians and writers, often working under political restrictions, have largely adopted a descriptive approach with an emphasis on biographical, institutional, and disciplinary histories and (...) on the theme of Chinese nationalism. The emergence of an international community of younger historians of science, the easing of access to primary source materials, and new attention to transnational and comparative perspectives promise to make the field an exciting area of scholarship. (shrink)

The recent escalation of concern about scientific integrity has provoked a larger discussion of many questions about why we do science the way we do, as well as about how we should do it. One of these questions concerns collaboration: who should count as a collaborator? This, in turn, raises the question why collaborators collaborate, and whether and when they should. Here, history offers insights that can illuminate the current debate.