Basic & applied research : the language of science policy in the twentieth century / David Kaldewey, Désirée Schauze

Introduction — Why Do Concepts Matter in Science Policy? -- Part I — Geneaologies of Science Policy Discourses -- Chapter 1 — Categorizing Science in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Britain -- Chapter 2 — Professional Devotion, National Needs, Fascist Claims, and Democratic Virtues: The Language of Science Policy in Germany -- Chapter 3 — Transforming Pure Science into Basic Research: The Language of Science Policy in the United States -- Part II — Conceptual Synchronization and Cultural Variation -- Chapter 4 — Fundamental Research and New Scientific Arrangements for the Development of Britain's Colonies after 1940 -- Chapter 5 — Basic Research in the Max Planck Society: Science Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1970 -- Chapter 6 — Beyond the Basic/Applied Distinction? The Scientific-Technological Revolution in the German Democratic Republic, 1945–1989 -- Chapter 7 — Applied Science in Stalin's Time: Hungary, 1945–1953 -- Chapter 8 — Theory Attached to Practice: Chinese Debates over Basic Research from Thought Remolding to the Bomb, 1949–1966 -- Part III — Outlook -- Chapter 9 — The Language of Science Policy in the Twenty-First Century: What Comes after Basic and Applied Research?

The distinction between basic and applied research was central to twentieth-century science and policymaking, and if this framework has been contested in recent years, it nonetheless remains ubiquitous in both scientific and public discourse. Employing a transnational, diachronic perspective informed by historical semantics, this volume traces the conceptual history of the basic-applied distinction from the nineteenth century to today, taking stock of European developments alongside comparative case studies from the United States and China. It shows how an older dichotomy of pure and applied science was reconceived in response to rapid scientific progress and then further transformed by the geopolitical circumstances of the postwar era.