Introduction: Scientific Authority and the Politics of Science and History in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe*.

What sounds like a laborious set up for a shallow joke actually hits the core of the problem this issue covers: What do the leading archaeologist of the former German Democratic Republic in re-unifying Germany, Bulgarian scientists in the late 1960s and some recent discussions about representations of Polish ancient history have in common? They all operate along fractures in the crust of scientific authority, they mark moments in time when classical figures of knowledge reach or breach authoritative status. They serve to study how authoritative speech bridged and manifested these relations and help identify areas where scientific authority is contested. This volume transcends this topological rhetoric with a praxeological take on scientific authority.