DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Science in Uniform, Uniforms in Science

Historical Studies of American Military and Scientific Interactions

Barton C Hacker editor Margaret Vining editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Scarecrow Press

Published:27th Jun '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Science in Uniform, Uniforms in Science cover

Science in Uniform, Uniforms in Science: Historical Studies of American Military and Scientific Interactions is a collection of essays, which owes its existence to the fortuitous conjunction of two events. The first was a temporary exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington that opened in October 2002, entitled "West Point in the Making of America, 1802-1918." Sponsored by the U.S. Army, it commemorated the bicentennial of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Rather than recount the academy's history, however, this exhibit focused on the lives and work of a select group of West Point graduates, some famous, others less well known, in the context of American national development from the beginning of the 19th century through the First World War. One of the exhibit's central themes was the significant part West Pointers played in the creation of American science and engineering. An extraordinary display of objects, such as natural history specimens sent by antebellum soldier-explorers in the West to the newly formed Smithsonian Institution, augmented the biographical narratives with visual and material historical evidence. Sixteen months later, in January 2004, the annual meeting of the American Historical Association came to the same city. The AHA seemed to offer a perfect venue for the exhibit's final public program, a symposium on the historic links between America's armed forces and the development of American science and technology. Not all those who participated in the symposium were able to prepare articles for this volume, but this book nonetheless represents an impressive cross-section of work being done on an important but too often overlooked aspect of American history.

Military and science and technology historians explore selected connections between science and military in the US from the Revolution through the Cold War. Their topics include smallpox inoculation in Washington's army, the electoral response to the naval revolution, Albert B. Sabin and the conquest of epidemic disease, the rise of big engineering during World War II, and global metrology 1961-80. The anthology was generated by the crossing of a temporary Army exhibition at the Smithsonian with a session at the January 2004 meeting of the American Historical Association in Washington, DC. * Scitech Book News *

ISBN: 9780810859913

Dimensions: 231mm x 153mm x 14mm

Weight: 263g

170 pages