The British Journal for the History of Science: States of Secrecy

The British Journal for the History of Science
 


If you promise not to tell anyone, then I will let you in on something that only select people know. Promise? All right then, here it is: the papers of the special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science (BJHS) on "States of Secrecy " are being made free to all. Don’t tell a soul. And read on…

Secrets and secrecy have been gathering renewed attention from historians of science recently. Science, it was claimed, has an ambivalent relationship to secrets: on one hand there is a powerful and sometimes prevailing image of science as a process of revelation, of uncovering nature’s secrets. Science as an institution that generates reliable knowledge can only work, said Robert Merton in the mid-twentieth century, when knowledge claims are made and assessed openly. Yet, on the other hand, scientific secrets have always been kept, whether for reasons of commerce, craft or state. There is a fascinating tension here.

The editors of the British Journal for the History of Science's (BJHS) special issue States of Secrecy, Koen Vermeir and Dá niel Margócsy, have brought together a set of papers on diverse aspects of the topic, but all with the aim of pushing the historiographical debate further. In particular they call attention to the wider consequences of secrecy (rather than the contents of secrets) for the social history of science. Secrecy draws people together as much as it separates.
Remember you can access all the papers from this special issue freely until 31st May 2013, but that's just between us!
Dr Jon Agar
Editor, BJHS