Globalizing Physics: One Hundred Years of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics

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Following the centenary of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, this volume features contributions from leading science historians from around the world on the changing roles of the institution in international affairs from its foundation in 1922 to the present. The case studies presented in this volume show the multitude of functions that IUPAP had and how these were related to the changing international political contexts.

The book is divided into three parts. The first discusses the interwar period demonstrating how the exclusion of communities of the Central Powers from international scientific institutions imposed by victorious allied countries made IUPAP ineffective until the end of World War II. The second part analyzes the changing roles assumed by IUPAP starting from its complete renovation after World War II. Case studies covering the role of IUPAP in physics education, in metrology, in joint commissions with other unions and in defining the complex relations between pure and applied physics provide examples of IUPAP's impact on the world of science. Part III squarely addresses the science diplomacy aspects of IUPAP during the Cold War highlighting the importance of IUPAP in furthering diplomatic goals and explaining the origin of the pursuit of the free circulation of scientists as the activity that characterized the main function of international unions during the Cold War.

Highlighting how often scientific agendas and political imperatives were entangled in the activities of IUPAP, the book analyzes the work of the Union as exercises of science diplomacy, thus contributing to the current debate on the use of science and technology in international relations.

Roberto Lalli, Assistant Professor, Department of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS), Polytechnic University of Turin,Jaume Navarro, Ikerbasque Research Professor, University of the Basque Country

Roberto Lalli is an Assistant Professor in the History of Science and Technology at the Polytechnic University of Turin. He specializes in the history of physics from the second half of the nineteenth century to the present. After a MSc degree in physics, he earned a PhD in International History at the University of Milan in 2011. From 2011 to 2013, he was a post-doctoral fellowship at MIT, and from 2013 to 2022, he was a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He has been developing quantitative methodologies for the investigation of historical developments of scientific fields and has published extensively on the interplay between science and diplomacy in the history of international scientific organizations during the Cold War.


Jaume Navarro is Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the Basque Country. A historian of science, he has previously held research positions at the University of Cambridge, Imperial College, the University of Exeter and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. His research interests lie in the history of physics and in the historiography of science and religion. He is the author of, among others, A History of the Electron. J.J. and G.P. Thomson (CUP 2012) and the editor of Ether and Modernity (OUP 2018).