Dr Gordon Barrett

I work on the history of modern China and international history of the Cold War, with particular interest in the politics of science and science in politics. My previous research has examined the roles played by scientists and scientific organisations in the early foreign relations of the People’s Republic of China. These scientists were singularly effective intercultural intermediaries who, being embedded in overlapping transnational epistemic and activist networks, won sympathy and support for the People’s Republic of China among foreign intellectuals. This study complicates longstanding narratives of China’s ‘closure’ and ‘isolation’ from international science during the 1950s and 1960s. It also shows that new and developing states like the PRC were as keen as the Cold War superpowers to utilise international organisations and events as tools for cultural diplomacy and propaganda.