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.”
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).
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 the atom bomb. Among others, Hahn’s animated lectures and seminars on Newton, Galileo, and Laplace left a lasting impression. One of his most innovative projects was the creation of an interdisciplinary course on Renaissance engineers, co-taught by four UC Berkeley professors: a historian, an architect, and two engineers.
Hahn was passionate about libraries and was himself a collector of books and manuscripts. He was instrumental in establishing the collections in the history of science and technology at the Bancroft Library and acted as advisor to those collections throughout his nearly fifty-year career. His devotion to this cause has benefited countless students and researchers who used the collections to study the histories of science and technology.
Always active in university and academic life, Hahn was a founding member and served as director of the Office for History of Science and Technology at Berkeley from 1993 to 1998. He also served as co-chair of the French studies program from 1987 to 1990, and chair of the Selection Committee for the France-Berkeley Fund. In France he held appointments at the Collège de France, the Sorbonne, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). Throughout his career Hahn served on numerous committees of the Department of History, the College of Letters and Sciences, the Academic Senate, the University of California System, and the Office of the President. He was twice named a National Science Foundation Fellow and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and member of the Académie internationale d’histoire des sciences, serving as its vice president in 2005. Hahn was also a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and served as president of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the West Coast History of Science Society. He was an active participant and member of the Advisory Council for Humanities West.
“Above all, Roger was a true scholar, an excellent teacher, a wonderful, warm human being with a fine sense of humor, and a dear friend,” said James Casey, a UC Berkeley engineering professor who was collaborating with Hahn on a publication concerning the theory of elasticity of metals. “His deep study of history had taught him to be philosophical about life, people, and politics. He had a realistic, balanced view of humanity.”
Roger Hahn is survived by his wife, Ellen Hahn, of Berkeley, California, his daughter Elisabeth Hahn of New York City, and his daughter Sophie Hahn of Berkeley, her husband Eric Bjerkholt, and their children Emil, Simon, and Sarah Bjerkholt. He is also survived by his brother, Pierre M. Hahn of San Francisco, and his family. Friends of Roger Hahn attended a memorial on the afternoon of Sunday, 25 September 2011, at the Faculty Club on the UC Berkeley campus. Gifts in memory of Roger Hahn may be made to the Bancroft Library, History of Science and Technology Collections, UC Berkeley, or to “Friends of Cal History,” chair, UC Department of History. All gifts should indicate that they are to honor Roger Hahn.
Ellen Hahn
Originally published as Ellen Hahn, Elisabeth Hahn, and Sophie Hahn, “Roger Hahn, 5 January 1932–30 May 2011,” Technology and Culture 53, no. 1 (2012): 254–57, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/tech.2012.0002.
Briggs, J. Morton, Jr. Review of The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803, by Roger Hahn. Technology and Culture 13, no. 2 (1972): 312–14. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/893473.
Hahn, Roger. The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.