Training and the generalist's vision in the history of science.
Commentators have often complained about specialization in the history of science. This essay discusses recent intellectual trends within our discipline in the light of significant changes in graduate training: both a relatively recent consensus as to the types of sources that are appropriate to analyze in a dissertation and the tremendous growth in the number of new dissertations completed each year in our field. It suggests that this kind of focus on pedagogical concerns provides useful analytic tools for historians investigating other fields in various times and places.
Kaiser
David
D
Program in Science, Technology, and Society and Department of Physics, Building E51-185, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
D004212:Academic Dissertations as Topic; D004500:Education, Graduate; D006663:Historiography; D006801:Humans; D012586:Science; D013038:Specialization