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A strong contribution to the history of modern science.
Historian Wolfe offers a thoughtful, thoroughly researched history of how the American government employed science and scientists to improve world opinion of liberal democracy during the Cold War... [R]eaders with an interest in the conjunction of science and politics will find her book an informative one.
Cold-war history, Wolfe writes, is not a heroes-and-villains narrative: it must be told in 'shades of gray.' The government used scientists' ideals for its own political reasons. And the scientists, who saw themselves as apolitical, used the government's political messages and support to question, observe, conclude, write and speak—freely and in accord with their ideals.
One of the common misbeliefs about science is that it is apolitical. Actually, as historian Wolfe reveals in her well-researched and closely argued study, during the Cold War, American scientists were often deeply involved in promoting American cultural values to other parts of the world in an effort to defeat the communists at the same game. An excellent study on a topic that deserves more attention.
Wolfe's new book, Freedom's Laboratory, frontally addresses questions of what science is, how it is best done, and how it (and scientists themselves) might be strategically deployed to advance national interests.
Audra Wolfe's provocative new book, Freedom's Laboratory, dives into the fascinating history of why asserting the apolitical nature of science became a political priority during another notably politicized period in America's past: the Cold War.
Carefully researched works on the Cultural Cold War, like Freedom's Laboratory, reveal what a murky world we have inherited. Scientists fighting against restrictions on their profession used the language of crusading anti-Communism, defining their work as apolitical and therefore free. But it was neither. The point is not, as Wolfe argues clearly, that 'freedom' is an impossible value to hold, nor that scientific internationalism isn't worth defending, nor that the fiction of apolitical science means that science is better off being relentlessly politicized. The point, rather, is that power and knowledge are always entwined. During the Cold War, American institutions were assumed to be ideal by default. We now know more than enough to understand that they were not, and that the task of making them better belongs to us.
Explores the science of the Cold War beyond its more tangible role in developing weapons. Instead, Wolfe focuses on science as propaganda, part of America's psychological offensive designed to convince people to buy into American ideology. She traces the perception that science should be free and unimpeded by borders and politics to this era.
It is hard to imagine a history of science that is more timely than one that situates our current political environment in the context of the Cold War... Wolfe's text is essential reading for both students and scientists who have been immersed in the idea of science as an apolitical pursuit.
This book is a well-written and information-packed account of science's roles in American culture and diplomacy during the cold war and its denouement. [A] strength is the depth and breadth of the archival and historical research offered.
Test DBR
Marvelously crafted, terse, and sprightly, Freedom's Laboratory is also original, utilizing new archival material and drawing on a wide and impressive range of primary and secondary sources. One of the first full-length treatments of the relationship of science, American democracy, and foreign policy, the book will appeal to broadly educated general readers and will very likely be widely utilized in courses on the Cold War and recent science.
In Freedom's Laboratory, Audra Wolfe does a remarkable job resurrecting the covert and overt ways during the Cold War that the CIA and the US government influenced science—and the way science, in turn, influenced the Cold War, from Iowa cornfields to genetics to biology textbooks. In doing so, she offers an important meditation on the true boundaries and meaning of 'scientific freedom' in the titanic battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. Writing with the eye of a journalist and the authority of a scholar, Wolfe delivers a compelling new look behind the curtain of a still shadowy moment in history.
In this fascinating and deeply researched work, Audra Wolfe reveals the role of science in US cultural diplomacy, showing the way the idea that science was politically neutral enabled the pursuit of forms of scientific internationalism that served US Cold War interests. An important contribution.
A wonderful, well-researched book evoking deep questions of science, freedom, and democracy.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
312
ISBN
9781421439082
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Western Science vs. Marxist Science
2. Ambassadors for Science
3. A War of Ideas
4. Science and Freedom
5. Science for Peace
6. Science for Diplomacy
7. Developing Scientific Minds
8. An
Introduction
1. Western Science vs. Marxist Science
2. Ambassadors for Science
3. A War of Ideas
4. Science and Freedom
5. Science for Peace
6. Science for Diplomacy
7. Developing Scientific Minds
8. An Unscientific Reckoning
9. Scientists' Rights are Human Rights
Epilogue
Featured Contributor
Audra J. Wolfe, Ph.D.
Audra J. Wolfe is a writer and editor based in Philadelphia.Resources
