Science International: A History of the International Council of Scientific Unions

Science International is the first history of a worldwide organization of scientists, now involving thousands of participants, which was started a century ago when a few visionaries founded the International Association of Academies (1899-1919). This was succeeded by an International Research Council, which, in 1932, became the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). This history describes how national academies and international unions of scientists from specific disciplines learned to work together, and shows that from these alliances sprang great cooperative projects such as the International Geophysical Year and the International Biological Programme, as well as the creation of a global scientific organization directed to the study of the entire planet and prospects for the human race.