Popularization of Science, Technology, and Medicine in the “Periphery”: A Step Further?

Based on the research that has been carried out within STEP, this essay suggests an integrative approach for the study of science, technology and medicine popularization in the European periphery during the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Such an approach can be a privileged tool not only for examining the complex processes of institutionalization and specialization of STM in peripheral countries, but also for exploring the interplay of STM in the making of modernity, since popularization seemed to have deep political implications in the implementation of modernization programs and the construction of national and professional identities in the European periphery.