Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Freedom's Laboratory : The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science - Audra J. Wolfe

Freedom's Laboratory

The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science

By: Audra J. Wolfe

Hardcover | 14 January 2019 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $77.99

$55.75

29%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $13.94 with

 or 

Ships in 5 to 10 business days

The Cold War ended long ago, but the language of science and freedom continues to shape public debates over the relationship between science and politics in the United States.

Scientists like to proclaim that science knows no borders. Scientific researchers follow the evidence where it leads, their conclusions free of prejudice or ideology. But is that really the case? In Freedom's Laboratory, Audra J. Wolfe shows how these ideas were tested to their limits in the high-stakes propaganda battles of the Cold War.

Wolfe examines the role that scientists, in concert with administrators and policymakers, played in American cultural diplomacy after World War II. During this period, the engines of US propaganda promoted a vision of science that highlighted empiricism, objectivity, a commitment to pure research, and internationalism. Working (both overtly and covertly, wittingly and unwittingly) with governmental and private organizations, scientists attempted to decide what, exactly, they meant when they referred to "scientific freedom" or the "US ideology." More frequently, however, they defined American science merely as the opposite of Communist science.

Uncovering many startling episodes of the close relationship between the US government and private scientific groups, Freedom's Laboratory is the first work to explore science's link to US propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns during the Cold War. Closing in the present day with a discussion of the 2017 March for Science and the prospects for science and science diplomacy in the Trump era, the book demonstrates the continued hold of Cold War thinking on ideas about science and politics in the United States.

Industry Reviews

""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.""

More in History of Science

The Shortest History of Innovation - Andrew Leigh
A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 - Bill Bryson

RRP $36.99

$29.75

20%
OFF
Royal Observatory Greenwich : A History in Objects - Louise Devoy
Sapiens A Graphic History, Volume 2 : The Pillars of Civilization - Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens : A Graphic History: Volume 1 - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
Geology : An Illustrated History - David Bainbridge

RRP $49.99

$40.75

18%
OFF
Nightfaring : In Search of the Disappearing Darkness - Megan Eaves-Egenes
Frankenstein : Collins Classics - Mary Shelley

RRP $9.99

$8.75

12%
OFF
Sapiens A Graphic History, Volume 3 : The Masters of History - Yuval Noah Harari
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe 1 : Space, Time and Motion - Sean Carroll
The Origin of Species : 150th Anniversary Edition - Charles Darwin
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe 2 : Quanta and Fields - Sean Carroll
The Physics Book : Big Ideas Simply Explained - DK

RRP $42.99

$32.75

24%
OFF
Indescribable : 100 Devotions For Kids About God And Science - Louie Giglio
Longitude - Dava Sobel

Paperback

RRP $22.99

$19.75

14%
OFF
Material World : A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future - Ed Conway