R obert F ox . Science without Frontiers

Despite being relatively short (an introduction, three chapters, and a brief epilogue), Robert Fox’s Science without Frontiers: Cosmopolitanism and National Interests in the World of Learning, 1870–1940, is a wide-ranging and very readable contribution to the growing literature on the interplay between nationalism and internationalism (or as phrased here, cosmopolitanism) in the modern scientific enterprise. The special focus here is the problem of scientific communication (including the question of an international language) and the related question of maintaining widespread, free access to an exponentially expanding body of scientific knowledge. A recurrent theme tying the work together is the role of two Belgian internationalists trained as lawyers, Paul Otlet (1868–1944) and Henri La Fontaine (1854–1943), who dreamed of creating a system that would assure universal access to all knowledge. Although the First World War was a major blow to these efforts, the interwar period brought their revival in various forms, which had mostly become moribund by 1939. Nevertheless, as Fox notes in the epilogue, one can still see traces of their legacy today.

Cosmopolitanism · Internationalism (politics) · Media studies · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theme (computing) · Tying · World War II · Classics · Computer Science · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies