Description
A synthetic account of how science became a central weapon in the ideological Cold War. Honorable Mention for the Forum for the History of Science in America Book Prize of the Forum for the History of Science in America For most of the second half of the twentieth century, the United States and its allies competed with a hostile Soviet Union in almost every way imaginable except open military engagement. The Cold War placed two opposite conceptions of the good society before the uncommitted world and history itself, and science figured prominently in the picture. Competing with the Soviets offers a short, accessible introduction to the special role that science and technology played in maintaining state power during the Cold War, from the atomic bomb to the Human Genome Project. The high-tech machinery of nuclear physics and the space race are at the center of this story, but Audra J. Wolfe also examines the surrogate battlefield of scientific achievement in such diverse fields as urban planning, biology, and economics; explains how defense-driven federal investments created vast laboratories and research programs; and shows how unfamiliar worries about national security and corrosive questions of loyalty crept into the supposedly objective scholarly enterprise. Based on the assumption that scientists are participants in the culture in which they live, Competing with the Soviets looks beyond the debate about whether military influence distorted science in the Cold War. Scientists’ choices and opportunities have always been shaped by the ideological assumptions, political mandates, and social mores of their times. The idea that American science ever operated in a free zone outside of politics is, Wolfe argues, itself a legacy of the ideological Cold War that held up American science, and scientists, as beacons of freedom in contrast to their peers in the Soviet Union. Arranged chronologically and thematically, the book highlights how ideas about the appropriate relationships among science, scientists, and the state changed over time.
About the Author
am a writer, editor, and historian based in Philadelphia. With a background in both science (B.S., chemistry, Purdue University, 1997) and history (Ph.D., history and sociology of science, University of Pennsylvania, 2002), I’ve been thinking through the relationship between science and power for more than two decades. My work specifically focuses on the role of science during the Cold War, a period when science held a special place in maintaining and projecting state power.My first book, Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America (2013), explored the power of science and technology as “stuff”: weapons, rockets, labs, and so on. Since then, my research has moved into the fascinating and disturbing topic of propaganda and psychological warfare. My new book, Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science (November 2018), looks at the power of the idea of science. What does it mean to think of science as apolitical, as objective, as separate from state institutions during an era of total ideological warfare? How did Cold Warriors hope to use these ideas to sway potential allies to their side? How do these Cold War-era ideas about “apolitical science” continue to influence our thinking about the appropriate role for science in public life today?In addition to my work as a writer and historian, I operate an editorial and publishing consulting company, The Outside Reader, that helps writers of serious nonfiction develop their craft. I offer both on-site and online publishing workshops. I’ve also worked in scholarly publishing, radio production, and university teaching.
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