In Teaching and Learning about Science and Society (Cambridge University Press, 1980), I argued at length that everybody ought to learn something about science, but that science is a large and open-ended topic, which needs to be treated in various ways at various stages of educational maturity. At school level, the most natural approach is through case studies of the place of science and technology in modern life, as we presented them, for example, in the SISCON in Schools units (published in 1983 by the Association for Science Education and Basil Blackwell). For slightly older students, a conception of science as a social institution can be built up from historical case studies, along the lines of the lectures I wrote up as The Force of Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 1976).

The present work goes one level deeper. It is addressed to students – and other diligent readers – who want to discover, beneath the historical and contemporary particulars, a more general framework of principle. They want to understand what is being said about science by the historians, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, economists and political scientists who have been making such notable contributions to ‘science studies’ these last few years. They need access to the scholarly literature in these various fields, both for its intrinsic interest and as a possible guide to action in scientific research, in industrial management, in political administration, and in public affairs.