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What happened in the sixties?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2008

JON AGAR
Affiliation:
Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS), University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. Email: ucrhjea@ucl.ac.uk.

Abstract

In general history and popular culture, the long 1960s, a period roughly beginning in the mid-1950s and ending in the mid-1970s, has been held to be a period of change. This paper offers a model which captures something of the long 1960s as a period of ‘sea change’ resulting from the interference of three waves. Wave One was an institutional dynamic that drew out experts from closed and hidden disagreement into situations where expert disagreement was open to public scrutiny. Wave One also accounts for the multiplication of experts. Wave Two consisted of social movements, institutions and audiences that could carry public scrutiny and provide a home for sea-change cultures. In particular, Wave Two provided the stage, audience and agents to orchestrate a play of disagreeing experts. Wave Three was marked by an orientation towards the self, in diverse ways. Modern science studies is a phenomenon of Wave Three. All three waves must be understood in the context of the unfolding Cold War.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 British Society for the History of Science

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