[Canadian] Sergio Sismondo: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, translated by Xu Weimin, Meng Qiang, Cui Hailing, and Chen Haidan, Shanghai Century Publishing Group, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, August 2007, 25.5 yuan
It is a rare introduction to “science and technology studies” (Science and Technology Studies, or, alternatively, scientific and technological studies, science and technology metrology, and so on; since this concept sometimes refers to a transdisciplinary field of study, and sometimes also denotes a certain stance or camp, while its boundaries are fuzzy, it is really hard to pin down… the translators also discuss this in the postface). Because there are still very few comparable Chinese-language books on the market, it is hard to compare, but as things stand this book is indeed a pretty good primer in the relevant field, at least giving one a preliminary sense of what the sociologists of science in the English-speaking world are actually up to these days.
Many of the views and claims introduced in this book I had already learned through other channels, so reading it did not bring any novelty; still, I imagine that the various radical positions presented here would be quite shocking to someone who had never encountered the related disciplines before. Of course, as an introductory book, this one does not provide the reader with support substantial enough to make those radical formulations convincing; it merely touches on them lightly, sketching out some clues and background in broad strokes,
The book introduces brief explanations of certain topics, some related case studies, and some short thematic commentaries in the form of inserted “boxes” within the main text; both in form and in content, this is done quite well.
However, the perspective of this book—as is the current trend in English-language academia—is basically sociological-anthropological throughout; one could say that the philosophical ingredient, even postmodern philosophy, takes up very little space. As for me, when it comes to entering into science and technology studies, I still tend to start from philosophical reflection.
October 21, 2007
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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