Following the 15th anniversary of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS), one can definitely say that this relatively young society has come of age. Through regular meetings, a journal, a prize, fellowships and various other activities, the ESHS has been striving to create a space fostering diversity, plurality and internationalization among historians of science, located in Europe and elsewhere. This paper revisits my own research on the past of the sciences in Portugal, examining in particular the role (...) of the 18th century naturalist and diplomat Abbé Correia da Serra. As a member of an extended network of estrangeirados (Europeanized intellectuals), Correia da Serra played a decisive role in the circulation of knowledge in Europe and also in the world, a role forgotten by his peers within the time interval of a generation. This case study acts as a springboard to discuss the importance of geographical and methodological diversity in the past of the sciences in Europe. In the present historiographical predicament in which the international community finds itself, I advocate that one of the main challenges faced by the ESHS is to turn its historical gaze to Europe again, while fiercely repudiating Eurocentrism. This enables to show how much the building of the European spaces of scientific practice were never a prerogative of a few regions or a small set of countries, but, on the very contrary, took shape as the result of complex interactions between diverse spaces and cultures, not only intra-European but also non-European. (shrink)

With this introduction we aim to illuminate Western Europe's place on the map of Cold War science and, specifically, to draw attention to the differences in and the diversity of Western European Cold War science in comparison to the United States. By discussing narratives of Cold War science in small states and asking how they fit into the European condition, we suggest that the fact of being a small state affects the conditions for and the scope of Cold War science. (...) As a whole, this special issue also emphasizes the importance of the spatial dimension; that is, the significant dependence of Cold War science on geographical relations and geopolitical interests. (shrink)