John Pickstone: Neilly Series Lecture

ohn Pickstone on “Describing, Analysing and Controlling Life: The Past and Present of Bio-medical (& other) Sciences.” Pickstone is the author of Ways of Knowing: a New History of Modern Science, Technology and Medicine. He leads the ongoing Wellcome (England) project on the history of cancer in Britain, beginning from the Second World War. He is also part of a group examining the recent history of mental health services and looking at recent changes in the NHS more generally. He is particularly interested in the uses of history in determining health policy. His work on Ways of Knowing grew from a conviction that through some of the hundreds of papers produced on the history of science, technology and medicine since the 1960s, we might develop new and better frames for understanding long-term history; and that such frames might allow more ‘fertilisation’ between case studies, across time and across disciplines.