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An engaging study of a great national institution. Essays explore the changing roles of museums and the perceived public role of a museum of science and technology. Illuminates the ways in which we think about the collecting and display of objects and the often difficult relations between the state, business and industry, and museum funding.

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List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Foreword; S.Schaffer Introduction; P.Morris Infected by the Bacillus of Science: The Explosion of South Kensington; R.Bud The First Years: The Science Museum at War and Peace; T.Scheinfeldt The Science Museum and the Second World War; T.Parsons III Ambition and Anxiety: The Science Museum, 1950s to 1983; S.Anthony Parallax Error? A Participant´s Account of the Science Museum, c.1980-c.2000; T.Boon Waves of Change: How The Science Museum´s Library Rose, Fell and Rose Again; N.Wyatt ´A Worthy and Suitable House´ Science Museum Buildings and the Temporality of Space; D.Rooney Exhibiting Science: Changing Conceptions of Science Museum Display; A.Nahum Beyond the Children´s Gallery: The Influence of Children on the Development of the Science Museum; A.Bunney ´An Effective Organ of Public Enlightenment´: The Role of Temporary Exhibitions in the Science Museum; P.Morris Collecting for the Science Museum: Constructing the Collections, the Culture and the Institution; R.Bud Lifting the Stone: Housing the Collections; J.Liffen The International Context and the Context of Internationalism; T.Scheinfeldt Afterword: The Museum of the Future; C.Rapley Appendix1: List of Temporary Exhibitions from 1912 to 1983 Appendix2: List of Senior Staff from 1893 to 2000 Appendix3: Visitor Figures for the Science Museum from 1909 to 2008

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´Science for the Nation is more than a chronological account of the museum´s history, fascinating as that story is. It also includes chapters on the museum staff and its library, buildings, collections, exhibitions and visitors...It is also an account of change...It is constantly changing and evolving, much like science itself.´ - E & T

´It is an account with something new even for those well-versed in the museum´s history.´ - Life After the Museum Newsletter

´Successful in commemorating the Science Museum as an internationally important institution [...] It is a fitting and varied testament to the museum´s first century and a half.´ Richard Dunn, The Journal of BJHS

´...the Science Museum deserves credit for publishing a book that contributes to the study of museology, history of collections and the material culture of science.´ Science for the Nation

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SCOTT ANTHONY Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK TIMOTHY BOON Chief Curator at the Science Museum, London, UK ROBERT BUD Principal Curator of Medicine, the Science Museum and Visiting Professorial Fellow of History at Queen Mary University of London, UK PETER J. T. MORRIS Principal Curator of Science, the Science Museum, London, UK THAD PARSONS Doctoral Candidate, Oxford University DAVID ROONEY Curator of Transport, the Science Museum, London, UK TOM SCHEINFELDT Managing Director, Center for History and New Media and Research Assistant Professor of History, George Mason University, Virginia, USA NICK WYATT Library Manager, the Science Museum Library, London, UK

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