Commission on bibliography of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science.

Nearly twenty years ago, I began to write a review of the literature of the history of oceanography and an assessment of its position in the history of science. My starting point was the first International Congress of the History of Oceanography, held in Monaco in 1966 and the presentation there of a bellwether paper by Harold Burstyn titled " The historian of science and oceanography. " Naturally, a further twenty years or so have seen some big changes in our field, but it is not my intention to update my review, but to take stock very briefly of where we stand at a time when I am standing down as the editor of History of Oceanography (twenty years is a long time) and when it seems to be time for new ideas, and maybe a new format for this publication. The gist of my review (which was published in Earth Sciences History in 1993) was an assessment of what historians had available, circa 1989, if they set out to do research in the history of the marine sciences, especially oceanography. I hope it is not just hubris, but I think that the paper has weathered well, and is still more than a period piece. Disregarding the old internalism-externalism debate, and the then contentious role of social studies of science in providing an epistemological framework for historical studies, my claim then that general historians should be paying more attention to the history of science – and more specifically to the history of the marine sciences, which have so strikingly married the scientific and the social (in which I include technological innovation, political forces, and public interest in the environment)-still has force. But mainline history is intensely conservative, held within time-honored boundaries by the imperatives of undergraduate curriculums, the specialisms of historians themselves, and the still intense appeal of political history. As historians of the marine sciences, we are still on our own. What then has changed in the past twenty years? When I wrote last on this subject there had been three International Congresses of the History of Oceanography. In 2008, we have just completed our eighth, in Naples. With only one exception, a significant book has resulted from each, or is in the works. This publication, History of Oceanography, now online, was new; now it has an established place in the field, partly as a venue for publications that …