Professor John Pickstone
Summary
Contact details:
Simon Building|Oxford Road|Manchester|M13 9PL
Research interests
Most of my latest work has explored aspects of recent medicine: the development of services for cancer across different countries; or how artifical hips were developed in Britain and the USA, including the roles of patients.
Much of my work has used the Manchester region as a 'historical laboratory' -- because looking intensively at a single region over time helps us understand how various stories were connected -- eg hospital services and public health, or medical practice and the medical schools. Presently we are working on the post WWII history of the Manchester Medical School. All such work helps us better understand out time and our place. It connect to my involvement with the heritage of Manchester University, and the Manchester Histories Festival which I helped originate.
But I am also interested in 'Big Picture' history, analysisng shifts in science, technology and medicine across centuries. That is the thrust of my publications on Ways of Knowing, and I am now tring to extend the big picture to include the fine arts.
Science, technolgy and medicine are central to modern society; if we want to understand their development and impacts, history is our golden key.
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