Paper 2: Sciences and Empires (1780–present)
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from Section A and
three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal weighting.
SECTION A
1. To what extent are historians justified in presenting the years around 1900 as a
turning point in the history of science and technology?
2. Compare the relative contributions of fieldwork and of experimentation to the
practice of the sciences since 1800.
3. What is the significance of economic factors in explaining the development of
scientific institutions since 1800?
SECTION B
4. What did the Calendar Case suggest about the relationship between science
and politics in the Qing dynasty?
5. How did Charles Darwin’s experiences on the Beagle voyage shape his
attitudes towards race and human origins?
6. “Technology was more important for the development of thermodynamics than
it was for the development of quantum mechanics.” Assess this claim.
7. Who might have voiced opposition to the Metre Convention of 1875 and why?
8. How have anthropologists used the study of others to address aspects of their
own society?
9. Thomas Henry Huxley praised The Origin of Species as “a veritable Whitworth
gun in the armoury of liberalism”. In a broad comparative context, was Huxley
correct in seeing Darwin’s book as an effective instrument for reform?
10. Did the physical sciences move beyond the senses circa 1900?
11. Shortly after World War II, Lee DuBridge reportedly remarked that “The bomb
ended the war, but radar won the war”. Do you agree?
12. How did the Sino-Soviet Split shape science and technology in Cold War East
Asia?