There is a book I read  describing this, but I can not recall which it is. But have you checked Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science. 

HI Stefan,

I recommend:

Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Winston, B. (1998). Media Technology and Society. New York: Routledge.

Enjoy!

best wishes, Eugene Loos

My references are somewhat out-dated but might be a starting point. The book I read is not in the languages you prefer. Take a look at:

Elzinga, Aant (1979): The growth of knowledge: some notes on possible historiographical models. Institutionen för Vetenskapsteori Göteborgs Universitet.

Hesse, Mary (1980): Revolutions and reconstructions in the philosophy of science.

You might look at papers referring to them.

Helge Kragh wrote a book: An introduction to the historiography of science. I have not read it myself but might be something for you.

The book by Helge Kragh cover various interesting topics. I think it is a good reference.

Another reference:

Osterhammel, J. The Transformation of the World. A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton.

Enjoy! Eugene

Thank you everybody, your answers are much appreciated!

If you are also interested in the beginnings of the historiography of mathematics as a scholarly discipline, I very much recommend Writing the History of Mathematics - Its Historical Development, ed. Joseph W. Dauben and Christoph J. Scriba (Birkhäuser, 2003).

I recommend Paul David: https://ideas.repec.org/e/pda76.html 

I am just teaching a course on that topic. There is a ton of literature. I would add the following books to the above mentioned:

Bowler, Peter J. und Iwan Rhys Morus (2010): Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey, University of Chicago Press.

Biagioli, Mario (Hrsg.), 1999, The Science Studies Read-er. New York [u.a.]: Routledge.

Hagner, Michael (Hrsg.), 2001, Ansichten der Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer.

You should maybe also talk to the historians of science and technology at your university and at the ETH. Very competent people.

Hi Stefan, maybe the book Power Over Peoples (Daniel Headrick, Princeton University Press, 2010) could be useful. Is about the relation between power (monarchies...) and technology from 1400 to these years. Good luck!

These are really interesting posts. But when re-reading your question, I was wondering whether you are not actually more interested in analyses of the history of science and technology as a field of inquiry, rather than general introductions. A lot of the texts proposed above include more or less extensive chapters on the history of the field. But these are often quite biased views. If you are looking for something more analytical, let me know. There are very good studies on that.

Thanks again everybody for your interesting reading propositions. 

@ Christian Reiss: Exactly, I am looking for historical analyses of the history of science and technology as a field of inquiry, rather than general introductions to the field. 

Maybe you will be interested in this volume! (Iberian context)

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0150.xml

Then I would recommend Zammito for a rather historical-espistemological analysis. McEvoy and Cohen use the historiography of a single historical phenomenon to study there different historiographical approaches. Mayer provides a history in the more narrow sense, setting the field in a  broader historical context. Interesting might also be interesting is Reisch history of the philosophy of science during the Cold War, a field very close to the history of science during those years.

I hope this helps.

Greets,

Christian

Cohen, H. Floris (1994): The Scientific Revolution. A Historiographical Inquiry, Chicago [u.a.]: University of Chicago Press.

Mayer, Anna-K. (2000): Setting up a Discipline: Conflicting Agendas of the Cambridge History of Science Committee, 1936–1950, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 31, S. 665–689.

Mayer, Anna-K. (2004): Setting up a Discipline, II: British History of Science and “the end of ideology”, 1931–1948, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 35, S. 41–72.

McEvoy, John G. (2007): Modernism, Postmodernism and the Historiography of Science, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 37, S. 383–408.

McEvoy, John G. (2010): The Historiography of the Chemical Revolution: Patterns of Interpretation in the History of Science, London: Pickering & Chatto.

Reisch, George A. (2005): How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic, Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press.

Zammito, John H. (2004): A Nice Derangement of Epistemes: Post-Positivism in the Study of Science from Quine to Latour, Chicago [u.a.]: University of Chicago

Press.

John Henry, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (New York, Palgrave, 2002).

Thanks again everybody for your interesting answers. And thanks especially to Christian – I think Zammito, McEvoy and perhaps Mayer might be of use. The time frame/scope of the conference paper I was asked to do will not include the Cold War era or constructivist views. I'll have to concentrate on the period between ca. 1880 and ca. 1930. I will try to point out how the history of science and technology became a topic of historiography.

Špelda, Daniel: Proměny historiografie vědy [Transformations of the historiography of science]. Prague: Academia, 2009. Unfortunately, it is available only in Czech. :-(

Thanks Christina and Petr. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the conference nor can I read Czech…

There are a few articles in the Routledge Companion to Literature and Science, ed. Bruce Clarke, that might be relevant to your question. The volume is intended for postgraduate students but is generally helpful and has a good bibliography for each entry.

Thanks very much Robert, the "Companion" should make for very interesting reading – and if not for this conference paper, then certainly for my PhD thesis (especially the articles on Cybernetics, System Theory, Information Theory and Chaos and Complexity Theory). 

The books of Owsei Temkin have introductions that are very useful for this. On Second Thought has a particularly thought provoking essay on it.

Stevenson, L.G. “Owsei Temkin, M.D. William H Welch Professor Emeritus History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, March 1979” Leaders in American Medicine (audio visual interview series). A National Medical Audiovisual Center Production. HF3473. Transferred to National Library of Medicine Digital Collection August 2004 http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-7901161A-vid

This is a 45 minute interview with Owsei Temkin a decade after his retirement from Johns Hopkins Medical University in 1968. The interview covers the scope of his career, his influences and current research influences. An important part of the interview covers his vision for medical and historical studies of the future and what he thought were the most important aspects of a professional medical historian.

A Historiography of the modern social sciences / edited by Roger E. Backhouse, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom ; Philippe Fontaine, École normale supérieure de Cachan, France Cambridge University Press , 2014.

The historiography of contemporary science, technology and medicine : writing recent science / edited by Ronald E. Doel and Thomas Söderqvist Routledge , 2006.

Historiography in the twentieth century : from scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge / Georg G. Iggers Wesleyan University Press , 1997.

Mythistory : the making of a modern historiography / Joseph Mali The University of Chicago Press , 2003. - Interesting point of view.

Thanks again everybody for your answers. In the end, I had to narrow down the scope of my conference paper to the history of the historiography of technology. I don't know yet wether there will be a publication from the conference, but in the meantime I will share some articles and books that helped me with my paper and might be of interest for others too (although predominantly in German):

• Bentley, Michael: The Turn Towards «Science». Historians Delivering Untheorized Truth, in: Partner, Nancy and Foot, Sarah (eds.): The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory, Los Angeles 2013, S. 10-22.
• Ferguson
, Eugene S.: Toward a Discipline of the History of Technology
, in: Technology & Culture, Vol. 15 (1974), No. 1, pp. 13-30. (→ special issue about the historiography of technology with several other very interesting articles)
• Fridenson, Patrick: Technikgeschichte im heutigen Frankreich. Literaturbericht, in: Geschichte und Gesell-schaft, Vol. 4 (1978), No. 2, pp. 247-257.
• Gleitsmann, Rolf-Jürgen: 500 Jahre Technikgeschichte bis heute – ein Überblick, in: Colla, Herbert and Faulstich, Werner (eds.): Panta Rhei. Beiträge zum Begriff und der Theorie der Geschichte, München 2008, pp. 167-183.
• Gleitsmann, Rolf-Jürgen: Technik und Geschichtswissenschaft, in: Hermann, Armin and Schönbeck, Charlotte (eds.): Technik und Wissenschaft, Düsseldorf 1991 (Technik und Kultur, Vol. III), pp. 111-136.
• Gleitsmann, Rolf-Jürgen; Kunze, Rolf-Ulrich and Oetzel, Günther: Technikgeschichte, Konstanz 2009 (UTB 3126).
• Hård, Mikael and Jamison, Andrew: Hubris and Hybrids. A Cultural History of Technology and Science, New York ‹etc.› 2005.
• Hermann, Armin and Schönbeck, Charlotte (eds.): Technik und Wissenschaft, Düsseldorf 1991 (Technik und Kultur, Vol. III).
• Hessler, Martina: Kulturgeschichte der Technik, Frankfurt a.M. 2012.
• Iggers, Georg: Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Hanover 2005.
• König, Wolfgang: Technikgeschichte. Eine Einführung in ihre Konzepte und Forschungsergebnisse, Stuttgart 2009 (Grundzüge der modernen Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 7)
• Long, Pamela O.: The Annales and the History of Technology, in: Technology & Culture, Vol. 46 (2005), No. 1, pp. 177-186.
• Lundgreen, Peter: Engineering Education in Europe and the U.S.A., 1750-1930: The Rise to Dominance of School Culture and the Engineering Professions, in: Annals of Science, Vol. 47 (1990), No.1, pp. 33-75.
• Partner, Nancy: Foundations: Theoretical Frameworks for Knowledge of the Past, in: Partner, Nancy and Foot, Sarah (eds.): The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory, Los Angeles 2013, pp. 2-8.
• Raphael, Lutz: The Implications of Empiricism for History, in: Partner, Nancy and Foot, Sarah (eds.): The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory, Los Angeles 2013, pp. 23-40.
• Rüsen, Jörn: Technik und Geschichte in der Tradition der Geisteswissenschaften – Geistesgeschichtliche Anmerkungen zu einem theoretischen Problem, in: Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 211 (1970), No. 3, pp. 529-555.
• Tetzlaff, Sven: Technikhistorische Fragestellungen und ihr gesellschaftlicher Kontext: Die Ansätze der Ingenieure, Historiker und Nationalökonomen um die Jahrhundertwende, in: Blätter für Technikgeschichte, Vol. 1995/96, No. 57/58, pp. 11-24.
• Torstendahl, Rolf: Fact, Truth, and Text: The Quest for A Firm Basis for Historical Knowledge Around 1900, in: History and Theory, Vol. 42 (2003), No. 3, pp. 305-331.

Stefan, I saw this only now.

Perhaps it is too late, and you are most likely already aware of this. But, just in case, I find it a great piece:

Forman, Paul, 'The Primacy of Science in Modernity, of Technology in

Postmodernity, and of Ideology in the History of Technology', History and

Technology, 23:1, 1 - 152

a shorter and somewhat different version is:

Forman, P. (2010), (Re)cognizing Postmodernity: Helps for Historians – of Science Especially. Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch., 33: 157–175. doi: 10.1002/bewi.201001464

best

f

I'm thinking Helge Kragh's book (Kragh, H. An Introduction to the Historiography of Science. Cambridge Univ Pr, 1989) as a good starting point. It may also be worth plugging the title into Google scholar or similar engine and track who has cited it.

Trends in the Historiography of Science-Richard S. Westfall (auth.), Kostas Gavroglu, Jean Christianidis, Efthymios Nicolaidis (eds.)

The Historiography of Contemporary Science, Technology, and Medicine: Writing Recent Science (Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine)-Thomas Soderqvist

Thanks everyone for your interesting answers!