{"product_id":"the-pasteurization-of-france","title":"The Pasteurization of France","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat can one man accomplish  even a great man and brilliant scientist? Although every town in France has a street named for Louis Pasteur  was he alone able to stop people from spitting  persuade them to dig drains  influence them to undergo vaccination? Pasteurs success depended upon a whole network of forces  including the public hygiene movement  the medical profession (both military physicians and private practitioners)  and colonial interests. It is the operation of these forces  in combination with the talent of Pasteur  that Bruno Latour sets before us as a prime example of science in action.  Latour argues that the triumph of the biologist and his methodology must be understood within the particular historical convergence of competing social forces and conflicting interests. Yet Pasteur was not the only scientist working on the relationships of microbes and disease. How was he able to galvanize the other forces to support his own research? Latour shows Pasteurs efforts to win over the French publicthe farmers  industrialists  politicians  and much of the scientific establishment.  Instead of reducing science to a given social environment  Latour tries to show the simultaneous building of a society and its scientific facts. The first section of the book  which retells the story of Pasteur  is a vivid description of an approach to science whose theoretical implications go far beyond a particular case study. In the second part of the book  Irreductions  Latour sets out his notion of the dynamics of conflict and interaction  of the relation of forces. Latours method of analysis cuts across and through the boundaries of the established disciplines of sociology  history  and the philosophy of science  to reveal how it is possible not to make the distinction between reason and force. Instead of leading to sociological reductionism  this method leads to an unexpected irreductionism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946236997685,"sku":"ByrdShop_0674657616","price":44.04,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780674657618_3c228cfd-49cf-475b-a62c-cb87f102b732.jpg?v=1770147131","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-pasteurization-of-france","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}