The British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) was founded in 1947. It is Britain's largest learned society devoted to the history of science, technology, and medicine. The society's aim is to bring together people with interests in all aspects of the field, and to publicise relevant ideas within the wider research and teaching communities and the media. Its mission statements states the society will strive "to foster the understanding of the history and social impact of science, technology and medicine in all their branches in the academic and the wider communities, and to provide a national focus for the discipline."
Publications are a key feature of the Society's professional activity. Print publications include:
- The British Journal for the History of Science (BJHS): a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal, including articles and reviews of the latest books in the history of science, technology and medicine
- Viewpoint: newsletter of the Society, published three times a year and featuring news and views from across the field
- BSHS Monographs: work of lasting scholarly value that might not otherwise be made available, and aids the dissemination of innovative projects advancing scholarship or education in the field
Other publications are online, including the BSHS List of Theses, and the BSHS Guide to Institutions.
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“In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it’s modern architecture.”
—Nancy Banks-Smith, British columnist. Guardian (London, February 20, 1979)
“In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)
“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)