Surgery and Society in Peace and War Orthopaedics and the Organizati
This book illuminates how crucial transformations in medical politics and organisation were linked to wider changes in society, economy and ideology. Paying particular attention to developments in medical welfare for physically handicapped children, wound
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE IN MODERN HISTORY General Editor: JobB V. Plckstooe, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Mediane, University of Manchester, England One purpose of historica1 writing is to iIIuminate the present. In the Iate twentieth century, science, technology and mediane are enormously important, yet their development is little studied. Histories of politics and literature abound, and historica1 biography is established as an effective way of setting individual. in context. But the historicalliterature on science, technology and mediane ia relatively amall, and the better studies are rarely accessible to the general reader. Too often one finds mere chronicles of progress, or scientific biographies which do little to iIIuminate either the science or the sodety in which it was produced, let alone their interactions. The reasons for this failure are as obvious as they are regrettable. Education in many countries, not least in Britain, draws deep divisions between the sciences and the humanities. Men and women who have been trained in science have too often been trained away from history, or from any sustained reflection on how sodeties work. Those educated in historicalor sodal studies have usually learned so little of science that they remain thereafter suspiaous, overawed, or both. Such a diagnosis ia by no means novel, nor ia it particularly original to suggest that good historical studies of science may be peculiarly important for understanding our present. Indeed this series could be seen as extending research undertaken over the last half-century, especially by American historians. But much of that work has treated science, technology and mediane separately; this series aims to draw them together, partly because the three activities have become ever more intertwined. This breadth of focus and the stress on the relationships of knowledge and practice are particu1arly appropriate in aseries which will concentrate on modem history and on industria1 sodeties. Furthermore, while much of the existing historica1 scholarship is on American topics, this series aims to be international, encouraging studies on European material. The intention is to present science, technology and mediane as aspecta of modem culture, analysing their economic, sodal and politica1 aspects, but not neglecting the expert content which tends to distance them from other aspecta of history. Tbe books will investigate the uses and consequences of technica1 knowledge, and how it was shaped within particular economic, sodal and politica1 structures. Such analyses should contribute to discussions of present dilemmas and to assessments of policy. 'Science' no longer appears to us as a triumphant agent of Enlightenment, breaking the shackles of tradition, enabling command over nature. But neither is it to be seen as merely oppressive and dangerous. Judgement requires information and careful analysis, just as intelligent policy-makil)g requires a community of discourse between men and women trained in technical speclalt
