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In Sputnik's
Shadow
Price: $49.95
Subtitle:
The President's Science
Advisory Committee and Cold War America
Author:
Zuoyue Wang
Subject:
Science,
Technology,
History
Paper
ISBN 978-0-8135-4331-4
Pages:
488 pages, 4 illustrations
Publication Date:
July 2008
View the Table of
Contents
Praise
for
In Sputnik's Shadow “In Sputnik's Shadow represents the most extensive and
scholarly effort to document the role of the science
advisory system in its difficult function of moderating
scientific and technological excesses while at the same
time promoting public interest."
-Wolfgang Panofsky
"A
fascinating episode in the history of science and
politics. No one has done historical work even
approaching this degree of thoroughness on the topic of
PSAC until Zuoyue Wang"
-Naomi Oreskes, author of the
forthcoming book, Science on a Mission: American
Oceanography in the Cold War and Beyond
Description:
In today's world of rapid
advancements in science and technology, we need to
scrutinize more than ever the historical forces that
shape our perceptions of what these new possibilities
can and cannot do for social progress. In Sputnik's
Shadow provides a lens to do just that, by tracing
the rise and fall of the President's Science Advisory
Committee from its ascendance under Eisenhower in the
wake of the Soviet launching of Sputnik to its demise
during the Nixon years. Members of this committee shared
a strong sense of technological skepticism; they were
just as inclined to advise the president about what
technology couldn't do-for national security,
space exploration, arms control, and environmental
protection-as about what it could do.
Zuoyue Wang examines key turning points during the
twentieth century, including the beginning of the Cold
War, the debates over nuclear weapons, the Sputnik
crisis in 1957, the struggle over the Vietnam War, and
the eventual end of the Cold War, showing how the
involvement of scientists in executive policymaking
evolved over time. Bringing new insights to the
intellectual, social, and cultural histories of the era,
this book not only depicts the drama of Cold War
American science, it gives perspective to how we think
about technological advancements today.
About the Author:
Zuoyue Wang is an associate professor of history at California
State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
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Price: $49.95
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