Applied Science by Robert Bud

Applied Science by Robert Bud

For almost two centuries, the category of 'applied science' was widely taken to be both real and important. Then, its use faded. How could an entire category of science appear and disappear? By taking a longue durée approach to British attitudes across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Robert Bud explores the scientific and cultural trends that led to such a dramatic rise and fall. He traces the prospects and consequences that gave the term meaning, from its origins to its heyday as an elixir to cure many of the economic, cultural, and political ills of the UK, eventually overtaken by its competitor, 'technology'. Bud examines how 'applied science' was shaped by educational and research institutions, sociotechnical imaginaries, and political ideologies and explores the extent to which non-scientific lay opinion, mediated by politicians and newspapers, could become a driver in the classification of science.

'In scope, conceptual finesse, and wide-ranging erudition, this is a ground-breaking bookBuilding on its core theme of the fashioning, deployment, and eventual fading, since the 1960s, of the concept of applied science, it offers insights of profound importance not only for historians of modern Britain but also for decision-makers and commentators concerned with the direction of research policy in our own day.' Robert Fox, University of Oxford

Robert Bud is Emeritus Keeper at London's Science Museum. He has led science, medicine, and curatorial research at the Museum, writing and editing books across chemical, biotechnological, and scientific instrument history.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781009365253
Title	Applied Science
Author	Robert Bud
Series	Science In History
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	2026-11-26
Number of pages	341
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.