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  • Roger Hahn, 5 January 1932–30 May 2011
  • Ellen Hahn (bio), Elisabeth Hahn, and Sophie Hahn

Roger Hahn, emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leader in shaping the history of science as an academic field, died unexpectedly on 30 May 2011 in New York. Hahn was born in Paris, France, on 5 January 1932. His family fled to New York in 1941 to escape Nazi oppression. Graduating magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1953 and earning an M.A.T. in education from Harvard University the following year, Hahn later served in the U.S. Army, stationed at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) outside of Paris. In 1961 he accepted a position in the history department at UC Berkeley. A consummate scholar and teacher and a valued colleague, Hahn researched, published, taught, and participated in both UC and academic life for over fifty years.

In 1953 the history of science was an emerging discipline when Hahn was among the first students to graduate from Harvard College with majors in both science (physics) and history. Through his studies at the École pratique des hautes études, as a Fulbright Scholar, and then at Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D., Hahn developed a keen interest in the relationship between science and society that marked both his own career and the history of science as a field.

Moving away from the established approach of teaching scientific development as a series of isolated chronological discoveries, Hahn pursued an integrated view of scientific ideas and institutions as reflective of the socio-political, philosophical, human, and other dimensions of their times. “He put his stamp on the field in a way that became a model,” says Cathy Carson, UC Berkeley associate professor of the history of science. “From the start, he cared for questions about science and society that have since become fashionable, and framed them with care, thought and deep academic grounding.” [End Page 254]


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Portrait of Roger Hahn.

One of his notable and influential early works, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), provides a comprehensive account of the elite Paris Academy of Sciences from its founding under Controller General of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert to its dissolution during the French Revolution and subsequent revision under Napoleon. Hahn described the academy as “the anvil on which the often conflicting values of science and society are shaped into a visible form.” Hahn is equally recognized for his work on French scientist-statesman Pierre Simon Laplace. As a graduate student, Hahn noted the lack of a definitive biography of Laplace, “France’s Sir Isaac Newton.” The Laplace ancestral estate burned in the early twentieth century, destroying most of his personal papers and library. Undaunted, Hahn embarked on a lifelong quest to uncover Laplace’s correspondence with scientists and colleagues throughout Europe, to reconstruct the evolution of his thinking and discoveries. Hahn searched the dusty recesses of innumerable libraries, archives, and personal collections—once discovering important documents in a cardboard box that had been “filed” in a Paris library’s men’s room. The publication of Hahn’s much-anticipated Laplace biography, Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749–1827: A Determined Scientist (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2004 [French]; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005 [English]), was widely acclaimed. At his death, Hahn’s work on Laplace’s collected letters was nearing publication (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols). [End Page 255]

Hahn’s academic interests frequently took him to Europe, where his fluency in five languages facilitated research throughout the Continent. He maintained strong ties with scholars, libraries, and academic institutions and deepened his prewar relationships with surviving family and friends. Hahn was decorated with the French government’s high academic honor, Officier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, for his promotion of cultural and academic exchange between France and the United States and for his classic study of the French Academy of Sciences.

Hahn was deeply committed to teaching as well as advising his numerous graduate and undergraduate students. His courses covered the broad sweep of the history of science—from Aristotle to...

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