Victor Seow, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, has won the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Sarton Prize for the History of Science recognizing “exceptional promise and distinguished achievements in the field.”
Seow is the author of Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022), an award-winning history of East Asia’s one-time largest coal mine and the technologies, industrial hubris, and technocratic politics behind its rise. The Sarton Prize is the latest in a series of awards Seow has won since completing Carbon Technocracy, which won the John Whitney Hall Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, the CHUS Academic Excellence Award from the Chinese Historians in the United States, and the Michael H. Hunt Prize in International History from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
“Many thanks to the Fairbank Center for the support you have given me over the years (from the time I was a graduate student) that helped make something like this possible,” Seow wrote in a statement.
The Sarton Prize, which has been awarded four times since 1999, was established in honor of Harvard professor and History of Science founding father George Sarton. “The Academy is committed to interdisciplinarity and this award, given at the intersection of history and science, is an opportunity to recognize an exemplary scholar,” Academy of Arts and Science President Laurie L. Patton said in the Academy’s official release announcing the award. “Seow’s exploration of energy, industry, and politics in modern East Asia bridges disciplines and fosters a deeper understanding of the historical forces that shape science, technology, and society.”
Seow’s next book, currently titled “The Human Factor: A History of Science, Work, and the Politics of Production,” charts the development of industrial psychology in China since the 1930s and the ways work became a subject of scientific inquiry. Seow, who also convenes the “Science and Technology in Asia” seminar series at the Harvard University Asia Center, will be presented with the award in Spring 2025.