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Greetings Israel Society for History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science, New items have been posted matching your subscriptions. Table of Contents H-Sci-Med-Tech: New posted content Upcoming deadline: PhD Conference in the History of Science, Medicine and the Humanities 14 ICHC (Valencia June 2025) - Deadline extension (Jan 7) & reminder 2nd CfP [Announcement] PhD Studentship - Data, Race and Empire: African Health, Scottish Missions and the Information Strategies of Dr Archibald Hewan (1832-1883) [Announcement] Science and Technology in Asia @ Harvard - Togo Tsukahara - "Environmental History in Transnational Networks: Climate History Described by Rangaku, Dutch Navy, and Japan's Colonial Meteorology" - Tuesday, December 3, 10:30–11:45 am ET over Zoom [Announcement] Flowers on Ha, 'Late Industrialization, Tradition, and Social Change in South Korea' [Review] H-Sci-Med-Tech: New posted content Upcoming deadline: PhD Conference in the History of Science, Medicine and the Humanities Marieke Gelderblom (she/her)   Dear colleagues,   I want to remind you of the approaching deadline for the CfA for the Tenth PhD Conference in the History of Science, Medicine and the Humanities, a biennial conference by and for PhD researchers from universities in Belgium and the Netherlands. The event will take place over two days, 9-10 April 2025 in the Netherlands.   Deadline: 1 December 2024 23h59.   We welcome submissions from PhD researchers in Belgium and the Netherlands who work in the field of the history of science in the broadest sense: including histories of knowledge, technology, medicine, the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences, spanning any time period and any geographical region. This conference is open to researchers at any stage of their PhDs.   For more information and the full call: https://www.gewina.nl/cfp-beyond-switching-plastic-straws/   Organised by  Marieke Gelderblom (Utrecht University), m.h.gel...@uu.nl Max Bautista-Perpinyà (UCLouvain), max.ba...@uclouvain.be Martijn van der Meer (Erasmus University Rotterdam), vande...@eshcc.eur.nl   Best wishes, Marieke Read more or reply Repost Back to top 14 ICHC (Valencia June 2025) - Deadline extension (Jan 7) & reminder 2nd CfP [Announcement] Brigitte Van Tiggelen     Dear all, The 14th International Conference on the History of Chemistry, to be held in Valencia in June 2025, is approaching. Along with this reminder of the call for papers, we are pleased to announce an extension of the submission deadline (please note this will be the final extension and submission) to January 7, 2025. The general conference theme is Chemistry & Capitalism with the aim to foster debates about the relationship between chemistry broadly construed, industry, environment, and regulations through a historical perspective. Sessions and papers on all aspects of the historical development of material and life sciences are also welcomed. We would also like to remind you that SHAC and CHCMC are offering grants to support attendance at the conference. Please find more details below and on the conference website.  We kindly ask you to share this call widely with your colleagues, students, and through your local distribution lists. Thank you for your cooperation. Best wishes, Ignacio Suay and Brigitte Van Tiggelen Co-chairs of the Steering Organizing Committee   Call for abstracts (2nd CfP) (reminder & Deadline extension January 7th, 2025) Every other year the EuChemS Working Party on the History of Chemistry (WPHC) organizes an international conference on the history of chemistry, open to colleagues from all over the world. The general aim of the conferences organised by the WPHC is to facilitate communication between historically interested chemists, museum curators, science educators and historians of chemistry, and to gather the community on a regular basis. The 14th International Conference on the History of Chemistry (14 ICHC) will take place from 11 to 14 of June, 2025 in Valencia, Spain, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The 14 ICHC will be hosted by the Lopez Piñero Inter-University Institute - University of Valencia, an academic institution which supports research projects and outreach activities on historical and social studies on medicine, technology, science and the environment. The general conference theme is Chemistry & Capitalism with the aim to foster debates about the relationship between chemistry broadly constructed, industry, environment, and regulations through a historical perspective. A non-exhaustive list of possible topics includes: -Chemistry/chymistry in the market before capitalism -Artisans & industries -Globalization & corporative powers -Experts in economy & science -Fascist science -Communist science -Gendered technologies -Regulation & decision-making -Commodification & circulation of chemistry -Toxics & agriculture -Environmental history -Labor & trade unions in chemistry -Neoliberalism & academy -Communicating science and propaganda  -Chemistry in mass media Sessions and papers on all aspects of the historical development of material and life sciences are also welcomed.   The conference programme will include scientific sessions, and the following key-note lectures: - Francesca Antonelli (Universitat de València), “Compound Interests: The Paulze and Lavoisier Families between Chemistry, Administration, and Politics (1760s–1830s)” - Angela Creager (Princeton University), “Chemical Passports: Environmental Science, Information, and Regulation in the Trade of Toxic Substances” - David Edgerton (King's College London), “What can chemistry tells us about capitalism, and what can capitalism tells us about chemistry?” The conference will also feature an early Career information session, the Commission for the History of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences (CHCMS) Early Career Lecture, the John and Martha Morris award ceremony, the WPHC business meeting, as well as social events such as a welcome party, a conference dinner, and a visit to the blast furnace and other industrial heritage sites in the city of Sagunto, which also preserves a Roman castle and theater.   Important Dates - Deadline for submitting proposals: 7 January 2025 - Notification of acceptance: 5 February - Provisional programme: March 2025 - Application for grants (SHAC, CHCMS & IILP): 28 February 2025 - Decision about grants: 15 March 2025 - Early bird registration: before 15 April 2025 - Late registration: before 16 April - 15 May 2025 - Deadline to have paper included in the programme: 15 May 2025 - On-site registration (not included in the programme): 16 May - 14 June 2025 - Final programme: Late May 2025 - Conference dates: 11 - 14 June 2025 (Saturday excursion included) Proposal guidelines The programme committee especially encourages the submission of panel/session proposals, but also welcomes the submission of stand-alone papers. Collaborations and co-authorships are accepted. All proposals must be in English, the language of the conference. Submitted abstracts and session proposals (max. 250 words) will be subject to review by an International Advisory Committee, that assists the Steering Organising Committee in ensuring the quality of the conference programme (see below). Sessions should include about 4-6 papers, and no more than one session can be proposed by the same organizer. There is a limit of one paper per presenter (including the papers listed inside a panel or a session). Each participant will have 15 minutes to present the paper, additional time will be included in all session for discussions and debates. All paper proposals must use the templates for panels and papers provided on the conference website, and submitted by email (by January 7th, 2025) to: 14ichcv...@gmail.com Additional information on submission - The Steering Committee has the flexibility to adjust the proposed sessions as necessary. - The Working Party for the History of Chemistry is committed to advancing gender equality, social justice, and geographical diversity at our conferences. The review process will take these factors into account to ensure the event is accessible to scholars from diverse backgrounds, institutions, and professional circumstances, while promoting inclusivity and equitable representation within academia. Venue The conference will be organized by the Lopez Piñero Interuniversity Institute (University of Valencia). The Institute is located in a restored 18th century palace in the centre of the city of Valencia, where the Historical-Medical Library and the Scientific-Medical Collection of the University of Valencia are located, with permanent and temporary monographic exhibitions. Practical info Permissions: In registering for the 14 ICHC, participants and speakers grant permission to the ICHC team to film, record or photograph it, as well as to be included in the book of abstracts. It is understood that these recordings and photographs may be used for news or promotional purposes for the promotion of the conference. For practical information about the city, accommodations, and other details, please visit the website section, which will be updated regularly. International organisers Working party on History of Chemistry of the European Chemical Society Local organisers Lopez Piñero Inter-University Institute - University of Valencia. Steering Organising Committee José Ramon BERTOMEU-SANCHEZ, Inter-university Institute for Science Studies (IILP)-Universitat de València, Spain Annette LYKKNES, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway (chair of the Working Party on History of Chemistry) Ignacio SUAY-MATALLANA, Inter-university Institute for Science Studies (IILP)-Universitat de València, Spain (co-chair of the Steering Organizing Committee) Brigitte Van TIGGELEN, Science History Institute, Philadelphia, USA (co-chair of the Steering Organizing Committee)   Local Organizing Committee Francesca ANTONELLI, IUED, Universitat de València, Spain José Ramon BERTOMEU-SANCHEZ, IILP-Universitat de València, Spain Carmel FERRAGUD, IILP-Universitat de València, Spain Antonio GARCÍA BELMAR, Universidad de Alicante, Spain Ximo GUILLEM-LLOBAT, IILP-Universitat de València, Spain Sofiya KAMALOVA, IILP-Universitat de València, Spain Silvia PÉREZ CRIADO, IILP-Universitat de València, Spain Ignacio SUAY-MATALLANA, IILP-Universitat de València, Spain (chair)   International Advisory Committee Charlotte ABNEY SALOMON, Science History Institute, USA Francesca ANTONELLI, IUED, Universitat de València, Spain Marco BERETTA, Università di Bologna, Italy Gisela BOECK, Institute of Chemistry, Rostock University, Germany Ewa BULSKA, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Warsaw, Poland Filip A. BUYSE, Royal Flemish Chemical Society, Belgium José Antonio CHAMIZO GUERRERO, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México Maria José CORREA-GÓMEZ, Universidad Andres Bello, Chile Danielle ME FAUQUE, EST-GHDSO, Faculté des sciences, Université Paris-Saclay, France Hjalmar FORS, Hagströmer Library, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Antonio GARCÍA BELMAR, Universidad de Alicante, Spain Pere GRAPI VILUMARA, Societat Catalana de Química, Spain Corinna GUERRA, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy Georgina HEDESAN, University of Oxford, UK Thijs HAGENDIJK, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands Ernst HOMBURG, Maastricht University, The Netherlands Frank AJL JAMES, University College London, UK Yoshiyuki KIKUCHI, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan Anders LUNDGREN, Uppsala University, Sweden Isabel MALAQUIAS, CIDTFF, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. Matteo MARTELLI, Università di Bologna, Italy Christoph MEINEL, Universität Regensburg, Germany Vesna MILANOVIC MASTRAPOVIC, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Chemistry, Serbia Bruce MORAN, University of Nevada, USA Peeter MÜÜRSEPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia Inés PELLÓN, Universidad del País Vasco, Spain Asbjørn PETERSEN, The Danish Society for the History of Chemistry, Denmark Birutė RAILIENĖ, Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Lithuania Carsten REINHARDT, Universität Bielefeld, Germany Maria RENTETZI, Friedrich-Alexander- Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany Alan ROCKE, Case Western Reserve University, USA Ana SIMÕES, CIUHCT- University of Lisbon, Portugal Rudolph W. SOUKUP, Universität Wien, Austria Sacha TOMIC, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France Geert VANPAEMEL, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium   Contact information for practical questions: 14ichcv...@gmail.com   Contact Information  14ichcv...@gmail.com Contact Email 14ichcv...@gmail.com URL https://esdeveniments.uv.es/116631/detail/14th-international-conference-on-the-… Read more or reply Repost Back to top PhD Studentship - Data, Race and Empire: African Health, Scottish Missions and the Information Strategies of Dr Archibald Hewan (1832-1883) [Announcement] Matthew Daniel Eddy Location United Kingdom Data, Race and Empire: African Health, Scottish Missions and the Information Strategies of Dr Archibald Hewan (1832-1883) Arts and Humanities Research Council PhD Studentship Durham University Project Summary The Data, Race and Empire PhD studentship offers an innovative methodology for knowledge-exchange and collaboration between Durham University, the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) and Uppsala University on the extraordinary biomedical career of Dr Archibald Hewan (1832-1883), the first black missionary physician in West Africa. The student will be based at Durham University, but will perform research at the NMS and receive further training at Uppsala University.  Focusing on recently discovered Hewan sources, and combining methods from Science and Technology Studies with training in the NMS collections, the student will explore Hewan’s career as a black physician who adapted imperial communication networks to proactively collect, interpret and disseminate biomedical information in ways that disrupted several of the European stereotypes about the people and culture of Africa. Studentship Summary The studentship is funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council in collaboration with the Northern Bridge Consortium.  It covers tuition fees (British home rate), expenses, room and board.  The main supervisor is Durham University's Prof Matthew Daniel Eddy, Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science. The successful candidate will be based in the Science, Medicine and Society research group in Durham University's Department of Philosophy and spend time researching in the African collections of the National Museum of Scotland. The student will also be part of the Northern Bridge AHRC Consortium, which offers further training and placement opportunities.   How to Apply The successful applicant will have a bachelors and a masters degree in History, HPS (History and Philosophy of Science), STS (Science and Technology Studies), or subjects such as museology, anthropology, archaeology, etc. that offer significant and demonstrable training on the history and science and/or medicine. Students with training on the pre-digital history of health and communication in the British Empire or on the pre-20th century history of Africa will also be considered. To apply for the studentship, please submit a PhD application no later than 14 February 2025 to Durham University Department of Philosophy. Indicate you are applying for the 'Data, Race and Empire' Northern Bridge Award. Early applications prior to 14 February are most welcome and highly encouraged.  Preliminary questions about the application may be sent directly to Prof Eddy (m.d....@durham.ac.uk).  Durham's PhD application portal can be found unit the 'Apply for postgraduate study' tab at: https://studyatdurham.microsoftcrmportals.com/en-US/ When preparing your application, be sure to include a full CV, three reference letters, and two 3,000-5,000 word writing samples. In lieu of a PhD proposal, please read the project description (appended below) and submit a 1,000 word personal statement that explains how your previous academic experience will bring insight to the themes, methods and questions the project will be addressing. --- PROJECT SUMMARY Data, Race and Empire: African Health, Scottish Missions and the Information Strategies of Dr Archibald Hewan (1832-1883) Research Question Historians have traditionally ignored the contributions of black physicians and intellectuals who lived during the long nineteenth century in the transatlantic world. Joining the expertise and resources of Durham University and the National Museums of Scotland (NMS), this PhD project seeks to address this lacuna by focusing on the biomedical career of Dr Archibald Hewan (1832-1883), the first black physician to serve in British West Africa as a Free Church of Scotland missionary doctor. Hewan was born in Jamaica, studied medicine at Edinburgh University, worked in Old Calabar (modern Nigeria) and then settled in London as a medical practitioner and expert on the diseases and natural history of Africa. Using newly discovered Hewan manuscripts, specimens and artefacts, the project seeks to answer the following research question: How did Hewan use African health and natural history data within church and medical communication networks to become a scientific expert? Research Context During the early 19th century black scholars from the Atlantic world studied medicine in Scottish hospitals and universities.  Aside from one chapter in Mia Bay’s ground-breaking The White Image in the Black Mind (2000), most studies that mention 19th century black physicians are largely biographical and give little attention to the roles they played as knowledge-brokers, as collectors and disseminators of data, within transatlantic information networks. Likewise, though historians of global health have written about the medical activities of 19th-century missionaries, a Hewan biography, surprisingly, has not been written.  Only a handful of studies have briefly outlined his medical career, or have glossed his missionary activities. Similar professional and intellectual gaps exist in the literature for other black physicians as well. Additionally, though black physicians working in the Atlantic world collected and disseminated important information from local populations relating to health and human rights, research on their place within the media ecology of empire is thin. In Hewan’s case, he operated within the Free Church’s global information and communication networks. While media historians have explored how other imperial institutions operated as global information machines and though church historians have investigated the role played by communications technologies within ecclesiastical networks, the Free Church’s status as an organisation that collected and managed medical data and the role played by its members as information gatherers and strategists, particularly those of African descent, remains virtually unmapped. This project seeks to shed new light on the subject by using Hewan as a case study. Research Methods During the mid 19th century, intelligencers with competing information-gathering strategies circulated data in the British Empire via diverse media. The student will explore Hewan’s role in this context with historically-orientated Science and Technology Studies (STS) methods that reconstruct how cultural values shaped biomedical data.  In particular, the socio-historical methods developed by Ruha Benjamin and Meredith Broussard will be used to reconstruct how data related to black actors was collected, who collected it, why it was collected and where it was circulated. The student will also learn to employ STS methods developed by Matthew Daniel Eddy, Zachary Kingdon, Linda Burnett-Andersson, all members of the supervisory team, that treat the material culture of manuscripts, specimens and artifacts as important historical forms of biomedical data. Additionally, curators in the National Museum of Scotland will offer hands-on methodological training to the student in their collections.   Special attention will be given to how these exciting sources offer insight into Hewan’s agency as a black data-broker who adapted ecclesiastical and medical communication networks of empire to proactively collect, interpret and disseminate information in ways that disrupted several European stereotypes about the people and culture of Africa. Museum Training In addition to writing a thesis under the supervision of Prof Eddy and other experts based in Durham's anthropology, history and philosophy departments, the successful candidate will learn transferable skills relevant to working in a large, public facing museum. The student will gain object interpretation skills from a training project in the NMS Edinburgh collections, and management and collection accessibility skills through training sessions offered by the museum’s Data and Systems teams. The student's understanding of the collections will be enhanced through writing several brief reports on objects and they will also benefit from working with NMS curatorial staff in developing a new approach to representing missionary collections. Research Community Durham’s Philosophy Department will be the lead department responsible for coordinating academic training and support, and for advising the student on how to access Durham's robust history of science and medicine research community. The successful student will join the Science, Medicine and Society (SMS) cluster, a specialised research group within the Department with a longstanding history in mentoring and training postgraduate researchers.  Upon arrival, the student will be offered doctoral training by the Arts and Humanities Faculty and by the Department on practical topics ranging from keeping an organised work schedule to how to publish a research paper. Further practical workshops of this nature are offered on a regular basis to postgraduates students every term. In addition to the advice, training and support regularly offered or recommended by the supervisory team, the student will be part of Philosophy's graduate cohort of MA, MRes and PhD candidates. All first-year PhD students attend Eidos, the weekly doctoral research forum, which helps them design, discuss and implement their research. They also attend departmental workshops that address practical topics such as understanding the job market, publishing articles, submitting conference abstracts, etc. The student will also be able to access the postgraduate training and mentoring opportunities offered by the History and Anthropology Departments, the two partner departments of the project. Supervisory Team Prof Matthew Daniel Eddy (lead supervisor) is Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science in Durham University’s Department of Philosophy.  He is a cultural historian of science and medicine in modern Britain and its former empire.  His first book The Language of Mineralogy: John Walker, Chemistry and the Edinburgh Medical School (Routledge: 2008; 2016) focused on the different kinds of interdisciplinary data that Scottish middle-class professionals used to create the emerging field of environmental science during the Enlightenment. His recent book, Media and the Mind: Art, Science and Notebooks as Paper Machines, 1700-1830 (Chicago: 2023), used hundreds of notebooks kept on scientific topics during the Scottish Enlightenment to argue that ‘reason’ was a contingent skill learned through the manipulation and re-manipulation of manuscript media technologies. He is currently writing a book about the relationship between race, information and science in the pre-digital Atlantic world. Prof Justin Willis (supervisor) is Professor of Modern African History in Durham University's History Department.  His work has been largely concerned with identity, authority and social change in Africa over the last two hundred years. He is author of Mombasa, the Swahili and the Making of the Mijikenda (Clarendon: 1993) and Potent Brews. A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa 1850-1999 (Currey: 2002). He is presently researching debates over Uganda's future in 1979-80, in the months after Amin's fall, and the history of saving and lending in Africa since the 1940s. Prof Hannah Brown (supervisor) is Professor of Medical Anthropology in Durham University’s Department of Anthropology. Focusing on West and East Africa, her publications focus on the delivery of biomedicine in developmental spaces. Previous work includes ethnographic fieldwork in hospitals and with health managers. Her current work is funded by an ERC starting grant, AliveAFRICA: Animals, Livelihoods and Wellbeing in Africa. This project explores changing animal-based economies in Kenya and Sierra Leone, and the implications of human-animal entanglements for health and well-being. Dr Zachary Kingdon (non-HEI advisor) is Senior Curator of African Collections in the National Museums of Scotland. He is an expert on colonial collecting in Africa, the anthropology of creative spractice, and museology and participatory practice. He is author of A Host of Devils: The History and Context of the Making of Makonde Spirit Sculpture (Routledge: 2002) and Ethnographic Collecting and African Agency in Early Colonial West Africa: A Study of Trans-Imperial Cultural Flows (Bloomsbury: 2019). Dr Linda Andersson Burnett (external advisor) is Associate Professor and Research Group Director in the Department of the History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is co-author of Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Colonial History, 1750-1820 (Yale: 2025).   Contact Information Prof Matthew Daniel Eddy Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science Co-Director, Institute for Medieval and Early Modern History Durham University Contact Email m.d....@durham.ac.uk URL https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/m-d-eddy/ Read more or reply Repost Back to top Science and Technology in Asia @ Harvard - Togo Tsukahara - "Environmental History in Transnational Networks: Climate History Described by Rangaku, Dutch Navy, and Japan's Colonial Meteorology" - Tuesday, December 3, 10:30–11:45 am ET over Zoom [Announcement] Victor Seow Location MA United States Dear friends and colleagues, I am pleased to invite you to the very last session of the Science and Technology in Asia online seminar series for the fall, which will take place on Tuesday, December 3, 10:30–11:45 am ET over Zoom. Our speaker is Togo Tsukahara of the Kobe University, and the details of his talk are as follows: ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY IN TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS: CLIMATE HISTORY DESCRIBED BY RANGAKU, DUTCH NAVY, AND JAPAN’S COLONIAL METEOROLOGY In our time of global warming and climate change, what can historians do?  One of the answers is to focus on climate history, to show how climate has changed and is changing. We can contribute by showing how climate has changed through the reconstruction of the climate of the past. We also should pay closer attention to the historical facts where the weather has been observed by whom, and from when, and how? In this presentation, I would like to focus on Japanese case studies in the climate reconstruction of the past. First, I will discuss weather observations by Dutch agents in the so-called closed nation period of the Edo era. With the sporadic record of weather observations in the nineteenth century, we have reconstructed the West-Japan Temperature series. Recent developments are accompanied by shifts in methodology, from fixed point observation to moving points observation. With a large number of moving data, such as those recorded in ship logs, we are now building a Big Data of past climate. For that, we are now analyzing Dutch Navy ship logs, which includes meteorological records. Second, I explain the expansion of Japanese weather observation networks in the former Japanese Empire. Through this case, I try to demonstrate how climate history is an example of transnational history involving interactions among multiple different cultural and political entities. About our speaker: Born in Tokyo in 1961, Togo Tsukahara first studied chemistry before turning to the history of science. He earned his Ph.D. in Leiden University, held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge University, and is currently Professor of the History of Science and STS at the Graduate School of Kobe University. Togo’s main fields are chemistry in cultural exchange, Dutch Studies in Japan, climate reconstruction, and the history of meteorology. He is currently the president of the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine. Zoom registration: https://scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia We hope you will be able to join us for this final talk in the series for the semester. Take care, Victor Contact Information Victor Seow John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences Department of the History of Science Harvard University Contact Email se...@fas.harvard.edu URL https://scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia Read more or reply Repost Back to top Flowers on Ha, 'Late Industrialization, Tradition, and Social Change in South Korea' [Review] H-Net Reviews Ha, Yong-chool. Late Industrialization, Tradition, and Social Change in South Korea. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2024. xv + 317 pp. $35.00 (paper), ISBN 9780295752280. Reviewed by James Flowers (Climate-Body Institute, Kyung Hee University) Published on H-Sci-Med-Tech (December, 2024) Commissioned by Penelope K. Hardy (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse) Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=60894 In Late Industrialization, Tradition, and Social Change in South Korea, Yong-Chool Ha argues that South Korea’s late industrialization, beginning in a comprehensive way only in the second half of the twentieth century, manifested the paradox in which a nascent and rapidly formed ultra-modern industrial economy simultaneously drew on and reinforced traditional institutions and values. This sociology of science study mines deep social context to challenge the orthodox view that South Korea adopted a form of universally recognizable modernity. Making the case for local South Korean particularity, this sophisticated analysis argues that tradition and modernity, especially related to social behaviors, are not incommensurable binary forces but rather operate as mutually generative and dynamic factors. Scholars, and especially historians, are familiar with the concept that modernity manifests differently according to place. Arguing, though, that science and technology studies in Korea have mostly ignored deep social and historical context, Ha’s insight centers on the idea that in South Korea, science and technology changed the country in unexpected and paradoxical ways. Korean people solidified old behavior patterns, while adapting them to new political and business institutions and organizational structures. Coining the term “neofamilism” as the key concept with which to conceptualize South Korea, Ha pushes back on the assumption that industrial modernity engenders a globally universal set of social consequences. By neofamilism the author means neotraditional personal relations, drawing on patterns of traditional networks of obligation. He identifies old traditional personal relations as mostly centered on clan village social structures. Familial relations remained paramount into the period of late industrial modernity and the rise of business corporations, or chaebols. At the same time, South Koreans formed new types of neofamilial relationship networks extending to school alumni groupings, and to regionalism, meaning loyalty to people of one’s own region rather than the nation. Scholars often analyze South Korea’s modern economic miracle in the frame of the broader East Asian rapid industrial development from about the 1960s onward, identifying the state as key driver of this modernity. They also frame industrialization in association with the role of the authoritarian rule of President Park Chung-hee from 1963 to 1979. Ha questions this narrative of the dominant state by highlighting the crucial factor of the well-known family conglomerates, or chaebols, to argue that the state could only operate in an interdependent position with them in their mutually constitutive relationship. For example, Park came to power in a military coup with his key policy position of opposing regionalism and the primacy of family ties. However, even though Park ruled by military diktat, despite his intention to reset South Korean social relations by breaking up the old familial networks, he had no choice but to rely on neofamilial ties in recruiting capable people to the state bureaucracy. Consequently, his prioritization of industrialization and exports of manufactured products came to rely on the family conglomerates. Key to Ha’s argument is questioning the dominant assumption that the chaebols operate as simply part of the state. Instead, the chaebols serve as a countervailing, yet codependent, force to the state. The power of the modern chaebols represents a form of continuity of Korean familism from a traditional past. Ha also questions the usefulness of class as a key determinant in understanding South Korea. He argues that the majority of people identify more with people of their own familial group, high school, university, and/or region than with people of their own social class. Ha himself acknowledges that in undercutting a class analysis of industrialization in South Korea he is strongly differing from most scholars’ work. Strangely, Ha does not mention China, Korea’s closest neighbor, for any comparison. Scholars who work on China are likely to counter his arguments of neofamilism by pointing to that country and the central importance of its dense networks of relationships, known through the concept of guanxi. Perhaps Ha thought that South Korea is obviously very different since his emphasis is on the centrality of deep family ties, unlike the case of the state in China, which since 1949, purposely set out to break up, and largely succeeded in breaking up, the old family clan structures. For Ha, the familial deep structures remained largely intact and essential to industrialization in South Korea. Chapter 1 sets up the theoretical framework for the book. It explains the various forms of modernization theory in the literature and how this book differs from the established view on the role of the state in late industrialization in South Korea. Essentially, Ha is saying that the role of tradition in helping to shape modernity and social change has remained unexplored. Chapter 2 historicizes Ha’s arguments on South Korean modernity. Ha traces the roots of modern neofamilism to the peculiar circumstances of the period of Japanese colonial rule, 1910-45. In the context of colonization, the old elites lost their status and political power. Paradoxically, the Japanese authorities left the family clan structures mostly intact to better govern the colony. In their weakened position, families turned inward, consolidating and doubling down on old familial social structures and traditions. Unlike Japan and China, where many of the old families were broken up, many Korean families strengthened and preserved their traditional social habits. The chapter also examines the context of schools as a social space where Korean students were able to form ties in the vacuum caused by the absence of a viable nation. Chapter 3 analyzes the rapid industrialization beginning in the 1960s with Park Chung-hee’s presidency. It lays out three main actors in South Korea’s industrialization: the president, the bureaucracy (state), and business (families). The president was not interested in traditional values but had to rely on them to harness the families to participate in industrialization. After the destruction of old sociopolitical structures in the colonial period (1910-45), from the 1960s onward, families and regions scrambled for higher social positions in the new era of industrialization. Ha challenges the appearance of homogeneity in South Korean society by showing how people and familial groups competed to seek power, showing little sense of class consciousness. Chapter 4 discusses the hollowing out of the bureaucracy. The business sector gradually achieved a stronger position in its see-sawing interdependent relationship with the bureaucracy, with many bureaucrats jumping from the bureaucracy to the business sector. The chapter also discusses the regionalism in which people from the southeast region dominated the leadership of the bureaucracy and business. Chapter 5 discusses the contentious issue of civil society and democratization. It analyzes the student groups that arose in the 1960s until the 1980s. Ha disputes the intellectual consensus that these activists formed civil society. Instead, he places the activists in the frame of neofamilism, forming new groups that did not always necessarily act in the interests of democracy. Here, Ha appeals for new formations in society in which Koreans create ties with each other. Chapter 6 analyzes the daily practice of neofamilism. Mostly based on fieldwork interviews and a range of surveys, it demonstrates the ongoing importance in the present of neofamilial ties, mostly related to blood, school, and region. The most obvious regional ties continue to be the southeastern Kyongsang and the southwestern Cholla regions. Chapter 7 analyzes the social effects of the 1997 financial crisis in South Korea. Even though the chaebols and the family as social institutions suffered massive psychological shock, neofamilism continues as the main driving force in South Korea at the time of writing. This book speaks across multiple disciplines in East Asian studies. It should be read by all those who wish to engage with the role of tradition at a deep level in late industrializing economies. The understudied role of tradition in the industrialization of East Asia adds a necessary dimension to the methodology of science and technology studies in general. Suitable for graduate students and university academics in East Asian studies, and in the sociology and history of science, this important book adds to our understanding of South Korea, and the role of industrialization in general, by provoking science and technology scholars to place even more weight on the centrality of social and historical context. Citation: James Flowers. Review of Ha, Yong-chool. Late Industrialization, Tradition, and Social Change in South Korea. H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews. December, 2024. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=60894 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Read more or reply Repost Back to top Message from a proud sponsor of H-Net: The New Books Network is proud to be a sponsor of H-Net. If you are interested in becoming an NBN host, please go here. Si te interesa hacer entrevistas en español, contáctanos. Please help us keep H-Net free and accessible. $25 from each of our subscribers would fund H-Net for two years. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation online. Contact the Help Desk: he...@mail.h-net.org. Manage notification settings by visiting My Profile > Notifications on the Commons.