Knowledge in the labyrinths of power: Europe and the (inter)nationalization of science in the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

The first half of the twentieth century was marked globally by a nationalist shift, which also affected science. The initiatives to block some “national science” (especially from Germany) and the discussions that flooded Western public space are hallmarks of the radical transformations that knowledge and power underwent at the time. Based on historical literature from the time, the article explores the growing polarization of scientific discourse in the first half of the twentieth century. Special attention is given to the interwar period, the (re)founding (after 1918) of international scientific organisms based in Europe (like the International Research Council), and the prohibition of the journal Nature in Nazi Germany in 1937.

Nazism; internationalism; nationalism; interwar period; history of science