Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime | Lino Cmprubí

Both as a (cutting edge) piece of scholarly work in the arena of the History of Technology and as a (very refreshing) contribution to the much debated History of Spain during the years of the Francoist regime, Lino Camprubi´s Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime makes a not so usual read within either academic milieu. Indeed: a relatively good wealth of research has been devoted lately to the development of science and technology within the context of the various undemocratic political regimes of the 20th century, thus challenging the over-simplistic idea that science (or even a well-orientated science as Philip Kitcher would have it) keeps a privileged relationship to democracy. That this needn’t always be the case is something that a good deal of research work has made evident over the last two decades. Ranging from the pioneering narrative by Mark Walker on nuclear energy research in national-socialist Germany during WWII to the many/multitude of contributions about the “fascistization of science and technology” put forth by Tiago Saraiva, an increasingly respectable amount of scholars have located the focus on the avenues through which real science (perhaps sadly: one no so well orientated as Kitcher would hope for) interacts with the social and political contexts in which real scientists do, in fact, operate. Leia Mais