In this article we discuss two phases in the evolution of global environmental programs, namely the Man and Biosphere Programme and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, with the aim of showing their hidden diplomatic ambitions from both US and Soviet perspectives.
The (Science Diplomacy) Origins of the Cold War
The US monopoly of information regarding nuclear weapons was one of the distinctive features of the early Cold War. It encouraged US officials to bolster their country’s hegemonic role in post-war affairs, something that scholars have previously referred to in
Just Needham to Nixon? On Writing the History of “Science Diplomacy”
This introduction examines the growing interest in science diplomacy and the parallel lack of in-depth historical studies on this new concept. In particular, we first show how the recent attention toward science diplomacy has led to a proliferation of hagiographic
Early Twentieth-Century Ocean Science Diplomacy: Competition and Cooperation among North Sea Nations
This paper is a response to a 2018 call for greater understanding of how previous examples of marine science diplomacy could help shape present day efforts to draft a new law of the sea that protects marine biodiversity and conserves
Friends in fission: US–Brazil relations and the global stresses of atomic energy, 1945–1955
This article considers a relatively unknown episode in the early Cold War that involved the US and Brazil, as well as a number of other countries. From 1950, the leading figure in Brazil’s nuclear effort, Admiral Álvaro Alberto, established amicable
On the road to Stockholm: A case study of the failure of Cold War international environmental initiatives (Prague Symposium, 1971)
In May 1971, the Czechoslovak capital hosted an international conference on the environment that brought together high-ranking government officials and scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain. The idea to organize such an event reflected Czechoslovakia’s interest in environmental
A Matter of Courtesy: The Role of Soviet Diplomacy and Soviet “System Safeguards” in Maintaining Soviet Influence on Czechoslovak Science before and after 1968
In 1969, a few short months after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Sergei I. Prasolov, advisor to the Soviet Ambassador in Prague, informed František Šorm, President of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, at a formal meeting that he welcomed
Science for Competition among Powers: Geographical Knowledge, Colonial‐Diplomatic Networks, and the Scramble for Africa
Historical studies on the relationship between science and diplomacy tend to focus on events since World War II and on initiatives for the maintenance of peace or to achieve cooperation over contentious matters. This article presents the case of José
A nuclear monument the size of a football field: The diplomatic construction of soil nuclearity in the Palomares accident (Spain, 1966)
On April 8, 1966, 4,808 barrels—208.2 L each—were buried at Savannah River nuclear cemetery in Aiken, South Carolina. They contained about 1,100 tons of radioactive contaminated soil and vegetation from Palomares, a village on the South Coast of Spain. Earlier that
The scientific object and material diplomacy: The shipment of radioisotopes from the United States to Japan in 1950
This paper asks how a scientific object functions in a diplomatic context by examining the distribution of radioisotopes by the United States to Japan in 1950. In particular, it aims to shed light on some material dimensions of the diplomatic
