Innovations in the Modern Arts and Sciences: Explaining Lasting Change in Novelty-Driven Cultural Fields

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book explores how lasting forms of change take shape in the modern arts and sciences, which became organized as fields that valued originality and continual innovation between the 17th and 19th centuries.

Using comparative case studies, the authors show how certain artistic and scientific contributions become established as innovations – shifting the aims, methods and everyday practices of creative practitioners over time.

Bridging history and sociology, this book offers valuable insight into how innovations emerge, gain traction and ultimately reshape the fields in which they develop. It is an essential resource for scholars interested in the processes that drive long-term change in creative and knowledge-producing communities.

Richard Whitley is Professor Emeritus of Organisational Sociology at the University of Manchester.

Jochen Gläser is Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Technical University Berlin and Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST), Stellenbosch University.