Masterwork Completed: Charles C. Gillispie's Science and Polity in France

摘要

With Science and Polity in France: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. viii+751, $80), Charles Coulston Gillispie extends his study of French science and education through tumultuous years with the same verve, accuracy, and attention to detail that characterized his 1980 Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime. By investing his past twenty-five years in the meticulous documentation of events leading up to and beyond the turn of the nineteenth century, Gillispie ensures his stature as dean of the history of science and technology in France. So thorough and so complete, these two books merit the rare accolade of being called definitive. Gillispie approaches his subject by studying the men who made history, and because he has lived so long with these men we meet them as friends, each with his own strengths and foibles, rather than as icons of heroic accomplishment. Gillispie seemingly has held in his hands every letter, every report, every document that each of them left behind. As a consequence, he assesses their states of mind, their unspoken motives, and their degrees of success with all the sensitivity that another author would bring to the characters in a novel. And while Gillispie emphasizes the importance of the individual in advancing scientific knowledge, he is careful to provide the context within which individuals made choices—hence the phrase "science and polity." He sees scientists as becoming successful when their importance in society leads to the creation of institutions that enhance their professionalism and enable them to help fulfill governmental goals. It should be said, however, that a narrative restricted to males may have a bearing on Gillispie's standard of institutional and governmental status.