PART 1. CONCEPTS, METHODS AND PARADIGMS. 1. Scientific and cultural transformations. General concepts and typology. Political architecture. Institutional architecture. Functional framework. 2. The sources. Historical Bases of Science. Classical paradigms and scientific and cultural historical processes. 3. Background. From Renaissance to modern science and the diffusion of knowledge. Enlightened Despotism. PART 2. SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL POLICIES: SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORICAL CHANGE 4. Revolutionary changes and contemporaneity. The industrial revolution and its consequences. 5. Science and politics. The liberal state. Cultural and scientific imperialism. 6. Challenges of science. Science as destruction. Gender and race. PART 3. INTERPRETATIONS. ACTORS 7. Science and State. Science and culture as essential policies for national sovereignty. Scientific and cultural practices and the Third World. 8. Actors of scientific and cultural policies. Political versus scientific. Between intellectuals and citizens. Birth of national opinion. 9. Agents of scientific and cultural policy. National R & D Plans as instruments of Scientific Policy. PART 4. THE GLOBALIZATION OF SCIENCE AND CULTURE 10. Scientific and cultural policies in contemporary society. The institutionalization of science. Science and culture as social objects of study. Social ap- plications of science and culture. 11. Scientific and cultural internationalization. Scientific communication and the international dimension of culture. Social transformation of science and scientific research as a model of international collaboration. 12. Challenges and hopes in a new millennium. From international science to the globalization of culture in the knowledge society. Politics, science and culture between the new historical changes and the challenges of the 21st century.