The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity was hailed as a major scientific breakthrough, inducing an unprecedented wave of excitement and expectation among the scientific community and in the international press. This book sets this research breakthrough in context, and reconstructs the history of the discovery. The authors analyze the emergence of this new research field and the way its development was shaped by scientists and science policy makers. They also examine the various institutional and national settings in which the research was undertaken as well as considering the scientific backgrounds and motivations of researchers who entered the field following the original discovery.