<i>Isis</i> before HSS: From <i>Géniologie</i> to New Humanism

The emergence of Isis as the publishing organ of the History of Science Society is remarkable given its uncertain origins. This essay surveys the periodical publishing landscape as it appeared to George Sarton on the eve of his founding of Isis and then focuses on the now-forgotten political and intellectual case that Sarton made for his new journal. Sarton is well known now for having yoked the history of science to a political project that emphasized internationalism and what he came to call “New Humanism.” But the vision that first motivated him was focused on the history of science as a genealogical study of intelligence aimed at improving the collective intellectual output of humanity. This was géniologie, “a branch of eugenics.” And even after Sarton moved on, this early vision profoundly shaped Isis’s design, particularly in its privileging of critical bibliography and biography, features that long outlasted their original theoretical aims.