This Encyclopedia examines all aspects of the history of science in the United States, with a special emphasis placed on the historiography of science in America. It can be used by students, general readers, scientists, or anyone interested in the facts relating to the development of science in the United States. Special emphasis is placed in the history of medicine and technology and on the relationship between science and technology and science and medicine.

From this unique collection of documents emerges a fresh, intimate, often striking picture of the life of science in the United States in the era when American investigators became central to scientific advances in many fields. Written in the course of the events described, these letters, memoranda, and other records—for the most part previously unpublished—convey personalities and issues with an immediacy hard to capture in conventional historical narratives.

By allowing key scientists, researchers, professors, and classroom teachers of science to speak for themselves through their published writings about what is best and needed for the field, Dr. DeBoer presents a fascinating account of the history of science education in the United States from the middle of the 19th century to the present. The book relates how science first struggled to find a place in the school curriculum and recounts the many debates over the years about what that curriculum should be. In fact, many of what we consider modern ideas in science education are not new at all but can be traced to writings on education of one hundred years ago. The book is aimed at all those interested in science education: classroom teachers and science education leaders concerned about the historical justification of the goals and strategies proposed for the field. The book should be enjoyed not only by the researcher but also by anyone curious about just how curriculum is decided upon and implemented on a national scale. “This is without question the finest book of its kind on the market. It deserves to be widely read by current and future science teachers, supervisors, science education faculty in colleges and universities, curriculum developers, and program officers in funding agencies.” —The Science Teacher “Adds a significant dimension to the history of American schooling and curriculum.” —History of Education Quarterly

In this history of the social and human sciences in Mexico and the United States, Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt reveals intricate connections among the development of science, the concept of race, and policies toward indigenous peoples. Focusing on the anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, physicians, and other experts who collaborated across borders from the Mexican Revolution through World War II, Rosemblatt traces how intellectuals on both sides of the Rio Grande forged shared networks in which they discussed indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities. In doing so, Rosemblatt argues, they refashioned race as a scientific category and consolidated their influence within their respective national policy circles. Postrevolutionary Mexican experts aimed to transform their country into a modern secular state with a dynamic economy, and central to this endeavor was learning how to "manage" racial difference and social welfare. The same concern animated U.S. New Deal policies toward Native Americans. The scientists' border-crossing conceptions of modernity, race, evolution, and pluralism were not simple one-way impositions or appropriations, and they had significant effects. In the United States, the resulting approaches to the management of Native American affairs later shaped policies toward immigrants and black Americans, while in Mexico, officials rejected policy prescriptions they associated with U.S. intellectual imperialism and racial segregation.

Publisher description

Science, medicine, and technology have become increasingly important to the average individual in modern society. The importance of these three fields is in many ways one of the defining characteristics of modernity. Understanding their history is essential for educated individuals. Science, medicine, and technology are not static endeavors but processes, bodies of knowledge, tools, and techniques that are constantly growing and changing. The entries in this encyclopedia explore the changing character of science, medicine, and technology in the United States; the key individuals, institutions, and organizations responsible for major developments; and the concepts, practices, and processes underlying these changes. Especially since the early decades of the twentieth century, American science, medicine, and technology have played dominant roles internationally. Entries explore distinctive characteristics of American institutions and culture that help explain this development.At the same time, the encyclopedia situates specific events, theories, practices, and institutions in their proper historical context and explores their impact on American society and culture. Entries are written by the experts in the field. Students not only from the humanities and social sciences but also from the sciences and the medical sciences should be attracted to the broad-ranging and in-depth analysis in the encyclopedia.

No professional group in the United States benefited more from World War II than the scientific community. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists enjoyed unprecedented public visibility and political influence as a new elite whose expertise now seemed critical to America's future. But as the United States grew committed to Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union and the ideology of anticommunism came to dominate American politics, scientists faced an increasingly vigorous regimen of security and loyalty clearances as well as the threat of intrusive investigations by the notorious House Committee on Un-American Activities and other government bodies. This book is the first major study of American scientists' encounters with Cold War anticommunism in the decade after World War II. By examining cases of individual scientists subjected to loyalty and security investigations, the organizational response of the scientific community to political attacks, and the relationships between Cold War ideology and postwar science policy, Jessica Wang demonstrates the stifling effects of anticommunist ideology on the politics of science. She exposes the deep divisions over the Cold War within the scientific community and provides a complex story of hard choices, a community in crisis, and roads not taken.