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Comment
. 2016 Dec;107(4):789-92.
doi: 10.1086/689767.

Pluralism versus Periodization

Hasok Chang
Comment

Pluralism versus Periodization

Hasok Chang. Isis. 2016 Dec.

Abstract

There is much potential in Frans van Lunteren’s schema of using certain important machines as focal points for characterizing large-scale trends in scientific development. However, there are difficulties with the periodization of history he proposes, particularly with regard to the periods focused around the balance and the steam engine; these machines were highly influential somewhat simultaneously, and their cultural resonances were not entirely distinct from each other. Van Lunteren rightly recognizes the multifacetedness of the epistemic, social, and material roles played by each machine. It would be more productive and natural to craft a historiographical framework that highlights the complex overlaps and interactions between the multifaceted roles of various iconic machines, rather than using the machines to define mutually exclusive and successive regimes of knowledge. In the end, we should also question the value of periodization as a mode of historiographical thinking: it makes for convenient but poor pedagogy.

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