The book The Missing Interaction: Science and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War, published by Brepols, is edited by AIAS Science Diplomacy theme group Fellow Maria Rentetzi, Professor of Science, Technology and Gender Studies at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen – Nürnberg.

The book is the result a 2022 Gordon Cain Conference at the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Science History Institute that Rentetzi was a co-organiser of.

With contributions from this 2022 conference, the book focuses on the interplay of science, technology and international affairs after the Second World War, hereby contributing to the formation of ‘Diplomatic Studies of Science,’ a field emerging at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies, the History of Science, Diplomatic History and International Politics.

I hope the book will serve as a useful steppingstone for scholars exploring the many ways science not only participates in global affairs but is also deeply shaped by them — and for those interested in understanding why these interactions matter today,” Maria Rentetzi explains.

The book is the first in a series of what Maria Rentetzi calls 'Diplomatic Studies of Science.' The volume seeks to illuminate how scientific knowledge, technological expertise and diplomatic practice have continually shaped one another in the modern world.

Rethinking the ahistorical definition of science diplomacy

 The edited volume investigates our understanding of the circumstances and conditions that have made the relation between science and diplomacy a primary concern of the political landscape in the twenty first century. As western liberal democracy and its effects on the environment but also on global war politics are under question, authors in the volume rethink the effects that an ahistorical definition of science diplomacy has had on world politics.

Contributions in the volume document the historicity of the entanglement between, on the one hand, epistemic practices and knowledge production and, on the other, foreign policy strategies and negotiation tactics.  

Entanglements between the scientific and the diplomatic

As an editor of the Science Diplomacy series, Maria Rentetzi encourages book proposals for the series, which investigates the historical entanglements between the scientific and the diplomatic. The series examines not only how diplomacy has drawn upon scientific expertise to navigate global challenges, but also gives due attention to how scientific knowledge, practices and institutions have been shaped by diplomatic agendas. The series provides a platform for critical reflection on how the entanglement between science and diplomacy has fundamentally shaped political and epistemic orders, both past and present.

Know more about the book and the Science Diplomacy series here

The Missing Interaction: Science and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War by Maria Rentetzi (ed.) published by Brepols, 2025:
https://www.brepolsonline.net/content/books/10.1484/M.SD-EB.5.141727

The Science Diplomacy series by Brepols: 
https://www.brepols.net/series/SD

Contact

Maria Rentetzi, AIAS Science Diplomacy Fellow at
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University & 

Professor and Chair of Science, Technology and Gender Studies
Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen – Nürnberg