2017 Volume 13 Pages 133-143
Shigeru Nakayama had achieved many world-class academic works in history of East Asian, and Japanese, science and technology. Further, his studies had covered history of higher education, science and technology studies, and many related topics. This article deals with the essential features of his works in a retrospective discussion of buildings of his academic career.
Nakayama, who learnt astronomy as an under-graduate student of Tokyo University, had turned to a historian. He was taught by Thomas Kuhn at Harvard, then, went to Cambridge, and investigated history of science of Ancient China at Joseph Needham’s laboratory. Hereafter, through his extensive academic works he had contributed to one of the most important subjects of the historiography of science in the later half of the Twentieth Century: overcome the Whig interpretation of history, depending upon his studies of non-Western history of science. He also had taken the concept of Kuhn’s paradigm in the widest sense. In doing so, he could extend his historical studies to many areas. One of the most successful results was “the Science and Society Forum,” which had assembled many excellent scholars to publish monumental works, “the Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan.” Adopted framework was his 4-sectors model of science and technology, based on government, business, academia and people.
