11 - United Kingdom

Summary

The territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and (Northern) Ireland, as it now is, has been the site of major scientific endeavors from the seventeenth century to the present, as is evident from any history of science. Indeed with the great expansion of Anglophone historiography of science since the 1970s, British cases, for the period 1750 to 1914 especially, were central to general arguments about the nature of science, situated in very local contexts but speaking to global concerns. In contrast, national modes of writing long suggested systematic deficits in British science. In the 1820s, Charles Babbage reflected on the “decline of science” compared to Continental Europe, and later in the century scientific campaigns relied on exaggerated contrasts with other nations, especially Germany.