Building the General Relativity and Gravitation Community During the Cold War

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The broader context of international collaborations in the postwar period.- Chapter 3. An unspectacular starting point: the Jubilee conference in Bern.- Chapter 4. The establishment of a stable tradition: The international conferences on General Relativity and Gravitation.- Chapter 5. A new community on paper: The Bulletin on GRG.- Chapter 6. The rapid growth of the community: new opportunities, new threats.- Chapter 7. Crisis and resolution in the organization of the 1968 conference in Tbilisi.- Chapter 8. The establishment of the journal General Relativity and Gravitation.- Chapter 9. Toward the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation.- Chapter 10. Conclusions.

"This book represents an important contribution to the history of General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG) studies. Scholars with an interest in the physical sciences will undoubtedly want to explore it in depth, especially since the volume pivots on a provocative argument. ... this book admirably shows how the post-war definition of community-building activities helped relativity experts to find ways to share ideas and formulate new research questions." (Simone Turchetti, Metascience, Vol. 29, 2020)
"Lalli details the discussions and arguments in the highly charged political atmosphere clearly and fairly. ... This book is not only interesting for its detailed history of the formation of an important international organization, but it is a useful history of the historical time. The interplay between the Western and Eastern scientists exhibits the political struggle to remain civil while accepting the needs and desires of each. This struggle and civility is clearly presented." (J. N. Goldberg, General Relativity and Gravitation, November 13, 2018)

"By mobilizing a fascinating amount of archive materials, a detailed knowledge of the field, and providing many important and far-reaching insights, Lalli's book is a helpful introduction to the complex field of the institutionalizing of science during that era of the Cold War." (Adam Tamas Tuboly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 58 (04), 2018)