Research Catalog

Science, democracy, and the American university : from the Civil War to the Cold War

Title

Science, democracy, and the American university : from the Civil War to the Cold War / Andrew Jewett, Harvard University.

Author

Jewett, Andrew, 1970-

Publication

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 13-2864	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

xii, 402 pages; 25 cm

Summary

"This book fundamentally reinterprets the rise of the natural and social sciences as sources of political authority in modern America. Andrew Jewett demonstrates the remarkable persistence of a belief that the scientific enterprise carried with it a set of ethical resources capable of grounding a democratic culture - a political function widely assigned to religion. The book traces the shifting formulations of this belief from the creation of the research universities in the Civil War era to the early Cold War, tracking hundreds of leading scholars who challenged technocratic modes of governance rooted in a strictly value-neutral image of science. Many of these figures favored a deliberative model of democracy, defined by a vigorous process of public deliberation rather than rationalized administration or interest-group bargaining. This vision generated surprisingly nuanced portraits of science in the years before the military-industrial complex"--

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction : relating science and democracy -- Founding hopes -- Internal divisions -- Science and philosophy -- Scientific citizenship -- The biology of culture -- The problem of cultural change -- Making scientific citizens -- Science and its contexts -- The problem of values -- Two cultures -- Accommodation -- Conclusion : science and democracy in a new century.

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