A systematic account of the importance of sociology for the understanding of scientific knowledge. Applying sociological analysis to specific historical case studies, the work attempts to show how the sociological approach is an essential complement to interpretations of scientific knowledge from other disciplines, and a necessary contribution to obtaining a scientific understanding of science. This book should be of interest to students in the social sciences and the history and philosophy of science, and to academics interested in knowledge, epistemology, the history of ideas and the new sociology of science.