``Scientific control'' in mathematical reviewing and German-U.S.-American relations between the two World Wars
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: ``Scientific control'' in mathematical reviewing and German-U.S.-American relations between the two World Wars
zbMATH Open document ID: 0806.01032
published in: Historia Mathematica
publication date: 1994-11-10T00:00:00Z
review text: The author discusses the function of ``control'' exercised by scientific reviewing, juxtaposed to its other more obvious functions of ``objectivity'' and ``modernity''; taking as a case study mathematical reviewing and German-American scientific relations between the two World Wars. This is an especially appropriate period since the first call for an American mathematical abstracting journal occurs around 1920, but the first issue of Mathematical Reviews appeared in 1940. By control the author means the function of reviewing in serving the interests of the implicit disciplinary power structures as well as social power structures. In an engaging paper the author traces vicissitudes in the relationship between German and American mathematicians over issues of reviewing, from some early American anxiety about German dominance of reviewing, through the various dissatisfactions with the Jahrbuch für Mathematik, the varying (and never uniform) American opinion on the utility of an American journal, the founding of the Zentralblatt für Mathematik, general American satisfaction with it, and the founding of Mathematical Reviews partially in response to the Nazi ``Gleichschaltung'' of the German reviewing journals. Nationalist reverberations in the structure of reviewing after World War II (even recently) are also briefly mentioned.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A80
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A74
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
zbMATH DE Number: 672364
zbMATH Keywords: mathematical reviewing
zbMATH Keywords: Germany
zbMATH Keywords: United States
author: Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
reviewed by: Sanford L. Segal
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: hmat.1994.1027
OpenAlex ID: W1998271364
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DOI: 10.1006/HMAT.1994.1027
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description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 672364