ABSTRACT This essay suggests that we should understand the varieties of “popular science” as part of a larger phenomenon: the changing set of processes, practices, and actors that generate and transform public knowledge across time, space, and cultures. With such a reconceptualization we can both de‐essentialize and historicize the idea of “popularization,” free it from normative notions, and move beyond existing imbalances in scholarship. The history of public knowledge might thus find a central place in many fundamental narratives of the (...) modern world. More specifically, the essay proposes that we pay more attention to forms of knowledge outside the realm of “science,” embrace the richness, traffic, and transfer of public knowledge on a transnational scale as well as in comparative perspective, and rethink conventional forms of periodization. (shrink)

This article investigates why Humboldtian Science, as a heuristic concept, has gained prominence in the historiography of science and requires clarification. It offers an ideal-type model of comparative research and exact measurements across vast spaces, which Susan F. Cannon and others tied to Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Yet, he himself was less “Humboldtian” than this concept suggests. The article proposes to disentangle Humboldtian Science from Humboldt’s science, which constituted a set of individual research practices that defied the ideal of precision. (...) Humboldt’s science was often impromptu, marked by epistemological and personal insecurities, and embedded in the protagonist’s peripatetic way of living and frequently erratic writing style. Historicizing Humboldt’s science undermines the exceptionalism that elevates the Prussian savant above his contemporaries and casts him as a singular figure. This critical reflection encourages biographical approaches to the history of science, balancing heuristic generalizations and attention to individual research styles. (shrink)

Alexander von Humboldt: Counternarrative of a dissenter? Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9514-0 Authors Andreas W. Daum, History Department, 570 Park Hall, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.