Science, History and Social Activism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Garland E. Allen, Roy MacLeod

      Pages 1-20

3. Historical Studies in the Life Sciences and Society

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

      PDF

   2. Advocating the History of Science

      • Jane Maienschein

      Pages 23-36

   3. Radical Nature in the Encyclopédie

      • Shirley A. Roe

      Pages 37-59

   4. August Weismann and Ferdinand Dickel: Testing the Dzierzon System

      • Frederick B. Churchill

      Pages 61-76

   5. Mendel’s Hypothesis

      • Raphael Falk

      Pages 77-86

   6. Biopower: Reflections on the Rise of Molecular Biology

      • Lily E. Kay

      Pages 87-102

4. Perspectives on the Social Studies of Science

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 103-103

      PDF

   2. China, “QI,” and the Challenges of Engaged Scholarship

      • Anne Harrington

      Pages 105-122

   3. How to Tell a Story in the Sciences: Settings and Lessons

      • Helga Nowotny

      Pages 123-135

   4. A Healthy Regard for the Facts

      • Peter Buck

      Pages 137-151

   5. The Dark Side of Progress

      • Jean-Jacques Salomon

      Pages 153-166

   6. The Loss of Distance: Science in Transition

      • Peter Weingart

      Pages 167-184

   7. Radical Politics and Marxism in the History of Science

      • Garland E. Allen

      Pages 185-201

   8. “The Social Context of Science”: SOC SCI 119 as a Way of Life and Learning

      • Gary Werskey

      Pages 203-214

5. Science, Society and the Social Responsibility of Scientists

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 215-215

      PDF

   2. Naturalists as Conservationists: American Scientists, Social Responsibility, and Political Activism before the Bomb

      • Mark V. Barrow Jr.

      Pages 217-233

   3. Human Experimental Abuse, In and Out of Context

      • Robert N. Proctor

      Pages 235-254

   4. Networks in Action: The Khrushchev Era, the Cold War, and the Transformation of Soviet Science

      • Mark B. Adams

      Pages 255-276

"To earn a degree, every doctoral candidate should go out to Harvard Square, find an audience, and explain his [or her] dissertation". Everett Mendelsohn's worldly advice to successive generations of students, whether apocryphal or real, has for over forty years spoken both to the essence of his scholarship, and to the role of the scholar. Possibly no one has done more to establish the history of the life sciences as a recognized university discipline in the United States, and to inspire a critical concern for the ways in which science and technology operate as central features of Western society. This book is both an act of homage and of commemoration to Professor Mendelsohn on his 70th birthday. As befits its subject, the work it presents is original, comparative, wide-ranging, and new. Since 1960, Everett Mendelsohn has been identified with Harvard Univer­ sity, and with its Department of the History of Science. Those that know him as a teacher, will also know him as a scholar. In 1968, he began- and after 30 years, has just bequeathed to others - the editorship of the Journal of the History of Biology, among the earliest and one of the most important publications in its field. At the same time, he has been a pioneer in the social history and sociology of science. He has formed particularly close working relationships with colleagues in Sweden and Germany - as witnessed by his editorial presence in the Sociology of Science Yearbook.

• cold war
• history of science
• science

From the reviews:

"Mendelsohn’s work has been multifaceted. … He has made fascinating and path-breaking contributions in the fields of history of biology, genetics and the atomic scientists movement, to name a few. … The series of essays contained here mirrors this extraordinary achievement. Wide-ranging, analytically stimulating and reflective, they demonstrate Mendelsohn’s effect and legacy. … This volume, and Mendelsohn’s example more broadly, offer a future for the historian of science as a humanistic, socially responsible actor on the historical stage." (C. A. J. Chilvers, British Journal of History Science, 2005)

• Washington University, St. Louis, USA

  Garland E. Allen

• University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

  Roy M. MacLeod

Policies and ethics