Maria Paula Diogo, Cristina Luis and M. Luisa Sousa, Ciência, Tecnologia e Medicina na Construção de Portugal, Volume 4: Inovação e Contestação, Tinta-da-China, 2021
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17572
application/pdf
2038-3460
17572
1
en
Luis Junqueira
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Maria Paula Diogo, Cristina Luis and M. Luisa Sousa, Science Technology and Medicine in the Construction of Portugal, Volume 4: Innovation and Contestation, Tinta-da-China, 2021
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
13
Book Reviews
2022-07-07
2023-06-30
2022-07-07
2023-10-26
161-164
TS
Luis Junqueira
2022/07/07
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17572
161
Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte)
2038-3460
1
en
164
Maria Paula Diogo, Cristina Luis and M. Luisa Sousa, Science Technology and Medicine in the Construction of Portugal, Volume 4: Innovation and Contestation, Tinta-da-China, 2021
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17572/16422
13
Book Review                                                               161

   Maria Paula Diogo, Cristina Luis and M. Luisa Sousa
Ciência, Tecnologia e Medicina na Construção de Portugal, Volume 4:
Inovação e Contestação [Science Technology and Medicine in the
Construction of Portugal, Volume 4: Innovation and Contestation], Lisboa,
Tinta-da-China, 2021, pp. 704

Luis Junqueira Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Centro de In-
vestigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte)

    Ciência, Tecnologia e Medicina na Construção de Portugal, Volume 4:
Inovação e Contestação [Science Technology and Medicine in the
Construction of Portugal, Volume 4: Innovation and Contestation] aims to
use science, technology, and medicine as lenses to look over the 20th
century of the Portuguese history and examine their role in building the
20th century of the Portuguese society.!
    The book broadly covers this period of time, going over the four
regimes in the recent history of the country – the last decade of the
Monarchy (1900-1910, with some chapters going back to the last quarter
of the 19th century), the First Republic (1910-1926), the military
dictatorship and the Estado Novo authoritarian regime (1928-1974) and,
finally, the contemporary democracy started with 1974’s Carnation
Revolution and marked by the integration into the European Union (then
European Economic Community) in 1986.
    The book is an edited volume that brings together 25 chapters by
leading scholars in History of Science and Science and Technology Studies
in Portugal. It is the last book in a four-volume collection entitled Science,
Technology and Medicine in the construction of Portugal, edited by Maria
Paula Diogo and Ana Simões. These volumes are part of an effort by
researchers from the CIUHCT (Centro Universitário de História das
Ciências e da Tecnologia) to increase the public visibility of these
disciplines and to highlight the role of science, medicine, and technology
in the history of Portugal.!
    The chapters are independent and cover a broad diversity of topics
such as the emergence of scientific disciplines in Portugal, the development
of scientific and higher education institutions, the relationship between
science and political regimes, the technological development of some
economic sectors (for example concrete, uranium extraction), the
relationship between Portuguese science and colonialism, and science
communication.
    The chapters are organised in chronological order and, although the
division between the political regimes of this period widely influence some
of the chapters, the lack of further organisation was a deliberate editorial
choice as stated in the introduction. The book aims to highlight how using
162                                                        Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


science as a lens to scrutinize the 20th century can help to emphasise the
continuities between different regimes. Some chapters do focus on one of
these political regimes (e.g. Chapter 1, on higher education during the First
Republic or Chapter 13, on the concrete industry during the Estado Novo).
However, many span over several periods like Chapter 13 analysing the
relationship between tropical medicine and colonialism and chapter 19’s
account of the history of racial anthropology: both range from the late
monarchy (starting from mid 19th century), through the 1st Republic, and
into the Estado Novo regime, highlighting some of the continuities
between the three political regimes of the period.!
    Nevertheless, the chapters tend to cluster around some key themes for
each period. The initial chapters, broadly covering the first quarter of the
20th century, mainly focus on the role of science in the construction and
consolidation of the Republican regime (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4) and the role
of science in the Portuguese colonial project (Chapters 5, 6). The central
section explores how key scientific institutions operated within the Estado
Novo regime (Chapters 7, 8 ,9, 10), the role of the regime in developing
key industrial sectors like concrete, plastics, or road construction
(Chapters 12, 13, 14, 16, 17), and colonial science during the same regime
(Chapters 18, 19). The last chapters analyse the dynamics of the “opening”
of the Portuguese scientific system to the new democratic regime, both
towards greater integration at the international level (Chapters 20, 24, 25)
and new forms of public engagement with science and technology
(Chapters 21, 22, 23).!
    The chapters are diverse in how they approach these topics. Some focus
on particular institutions in the national context (Chapters 2, 7), while
others on the development of a scientific discipline (Chapters 3, 6, 15, 19)
or economic sector (Chapters 5, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17). One chapter examines
the career of a prominent scientist, Egas Moniz, the only Portuguese
granted a Nobel Prize in Medicine (Chapter 10) and another the history of
a Portuguese science periodical, Brotéria (Chapter 11). A few chapters
explore science policy and its impacts (Chapters 1, 9, 18, 20, 24, 25),
science communication (Chapters 4, 18, 21, 22), and one focuses on the
sociotechnical conflict around nuclear energy (Chapter 23). The volume
also covers a diversity of disciplines but some are clearly more represented.
There are several chapters on engineering or different engineering
specialities. Chapter 2 explores the history of engineering education in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chapter 15 analyses the impact of the
Marshall Plan on Portuguese engineering and some other chapters explore
different engineering specialities (Chapters 12, 13, 14). Some chapters are
on topics related to medicine: the influence of medicine in 20th century
republican ideology (Chapters 3), the history of tropical medicine during
the colonial period (Chapter 6), the research of the neurosurgeon Egas
Moniz (Chapter 10) and agricultural science (Chapter 5). The remaining
Book Review                                                              163

discipline-focused chapters are on biology (Chapter 11), nuclear physics
and engineering (Chapter 16), and anthropology (Chapter 19).!
    The authors come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds: social
history, history of science, sociology, anthropology, geography, museology,
and science communication. With such a diversity, the volume’s cohesion
comes not from a particular theoretical framing but mainly from its
dialogue with the sources and previous Portuguese historiography in an
attempt to reframe and expand the understanding of the role of science
and technology in the Portuguese history. The chapters often draw from
the authors’ previous research and while they address topics covered
beforehand, their reframing for this volume is nonetheless a valuable
contribution to the scholarship on science and technology in Portugal.!
    It is nevertheless possible to identify some broad themes that are
present throughout the book and give it a conceptual cohesion. One is, as
mentioned by the editors, the role of science and technology in Portugal
throughout the 20th century, pushing against the narrative that these areas
were not a relevant force in shaping Portuguese society for most of this
historical period. The volume contributes to highlighting, instead, how the
role of science and technology changed according to the objectives of
different political regimes and along with the evolution of the international
context. For example, the chapters (e.g. 15, 16) on the Estado Novo period
show how rather than isolationist, the regime had a pragmatist and
selective approach towards scientific and technical development, which
benefited from increased international involvement of the regime starting
from the post-war period. Another important theme is the persistence of
the semi-peripheral status of Portugal in the global science system,
explored in previous work by other authors (Delicado 2014; Nunes 2001).
Even though it is not a novel framing, the volume emphasises how this
semi-peripheral status expressed itself in different periods of the 20th
century. For example, Chapter 19, on the history of Portuguese Racial
Anthropology, highlights the ambivalent relationship in the post-WWII
period between Portuguese anthropology, aligned with the national
colonial project, and “foreign science”, that is, the foreign practice of
anthropology that increasingly reflected the anti-colonial sentiment of the
period. Similarly, Chapter 24 explores how the shifting patterns of mobility
of Portuguese scientists flowed with changes in national science policy.!
    The volume follows from previous efforts of other scholars to highlight
research on science and technology in 20th-century Portugal (see Nunes
and Roque 2008; Saraiva and Macedo 2019). Importantly, it adds to a more
nuanced understanding of the role of science, technology, and medicine in
Portugal, often only perceived by its pattern of fragmentation, weak
investment, lack of innovation, and dependence on political power. The
book also explores how science, technology and medicine were mobilised
throughout the 20th century with variable political enthusiasm to address
164                                                              Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


some of the country’s challenges: from the need to educate the elites of the
emerging Republican regime, to the Estado Novo’s selective endorsement
of technological modernisation, to the impetus to democratise science and
higher education towards the end of the century.!
    The development of STS and History of Science in Portugal was shaped
by the same historical pattern of weak political investment that affected
Portuguese academia in general, exacerbated by the constraining influence
of a traditionalist political regime that lasted for most of the 20th century
and had a selective approach to modernization and general distrust
towards the social sciences. However, the emergence of both disciplines
quickly followed the political commitment to develop the national science
and technology system, especially from the decade of the 2000s (see
Chapter 20, 24). The improved status and increased social presence of
science in Portuguese society (see also Chapters 21, 22) attracted a new
generation of scholars that saw them as relevant objects of social and
historical inquiry. This volume is also a valuable addition to scholarship on
science and technology for gathering and highlighting some of the more
prominent research from what are still fairly young, but nonetheless
relevant, national STS and History of Science communities.

References
Delicado, A. (2014) At the (Semi) Periphery: The Development of Science and Tech-
       nology Studies in Portugal, in “Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science and
       Technology Studies”, 4 (2), pp. 125-148.
Nunes, J.A. (ed.) (2001) Enteados de Galileu?: A Semiperiferia no Sistema Mundial
       da Ciência, Porto, Afrontamento.
Nunes, J.A. and Roque, R. (eds.) (2008) Objetos Impuros: Experiências em Estudos
       Sobre a Ciência, Porto, Afrontamento.
Saraiva, T. and Macedo, M. (eds.) (2019), Capital Científica: Práticas da Ciência em
        Lisboa e a História Contemporânea, Lisboa, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.

                                       ***
