Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract This special issue demonstrates how investigating topics related to the histories of science and technology illuminates themes of enduring importance in French and Francophone historical study—from policing female bodies to expressing patriotic anxieties. By documenting the circulation of people, ideas, information, artifacts, and technology within and beyond the Hexagon, these six articles help rethink French science and technology since the 1700s by problematizing the often-assumed links among science, technology, mobility, and modernity. Instead of seeing moments of change in science or technology as self-evident moments of modernity, the authors show how such moments unleash crosscurrents that pit modernizing projects against moves that resist modernization. Rather than any linear relationship between science and technology, on the one hand, and modernity, on the other, these articles stress the consistent, contingent, and contested entanglement of these terms. Reflecting the history of science's shift away from great men and often state-sponsored sciences, they emphasize applied, “minor,” and popular sciences practiced by individuals beyond the academically trained. Here, users and consumers of science and technology are often as important as its producers, and observers outside the magic circle of professionals debate the stakes in and value of innovations—from decrying moral perils to legitimating imperial projects.