Beyond History of Science: Essays in Honor of Robert E. Schofield ed. by Elizabeth Garber

Abstract

192 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE theme, which draws on Smith’s experience at the State Department, seldom appears in this sort of discussion. The themes might therefore have provided insight through juxtaposition, but they are not closely integrated in Smith’s treatment. The final chapter, “The Unfinished Agenda,” unveils an unstated but unmistakable agenda of the book, to counter proposals for a combined Department of Science and Technology with a reaffirma­ tion of the accomplishments of the current pluralistic funding system. It also includes such startling recommendations as setting priorities for research, paying government scientists more, strengthening uni­ versities, modernizing industry, keeping the peer review system, and solving environmental problems through more research and devel­ opment. No analytical thread ties these pronouncements to the preceding descriptive chapters. The book is short on discussion of biomedicine, a glaring omission given that about half of U.S. government support for science goes to that endeavor. The list of other items not treated is equally puzzling. There is no recognition of the growth of world science around the U.S. scientific enterprise, and thus no discussion of competition from Japan or Europe for technical leadership. Fraud is just barely mentioned, and animal rights controversies do not appear at all. Despite the extensive treatment of the 1980s, controversy over university-industry relations does not play any major role in the discussion. Indeed, although Smith is well known for his part in a landmark study of the state of academic science in the 1970s, he reveals no concept of the educational mission of universities at all and therefore does not grasp the possible conflicts between pressures toward commercialization and a university-based research system. Indeed, it is difficult to picture the perfect audience for this book. It is clearly not intended for historians, who will want more detail and primary documentation. Students will find the reading dull, and science policy analysts will find nothing new here. In the end, Smith has produced a reference work, which will function as an introduction for those who know nothing about science/government relations and point them to other sources for stimulation. Susan E. Cozzens Dr. Cozzens teaches in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Beyond History ofScience: Essays in Honor ofRobert E. Schofield. Edited by Elizabeth Garber. Bethlehem, Pa., and Cranbury, N.J.: Lehigh University Press and Associated University Presses, 1990. Pp. 325; notes, index. $48.50. This volume was designed as both a festschrift for Robert Schofield and an attempt to review and illustrate current problems in the histori­ TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 193 ography of the history of science and technology. The authors— Schofield’s colleagues or students—range from well-known senior scholars—Edwin Layton, Martin Klein, Russell McCormmach—to one ofSchofield’s current graduate students. All ofthe seventeen essays were commissioned for this volume. Complementing the essays are a short, sprighdy, and insightful personal tribute by Melvin Kranzberg, an introduction by Elizabeth Garber, and a bibliography of Schofield’s publications. Garber has divided the book into four sections: “Biography,” “The Disciplines of Science,” “Science and Technology,” and “Science, Technology, and Culture.” The contents of the first two sections will probably hold little interest for most historians of technology. All of the eight essays focus on the lives, work, and disciplines of late-18th-, 19th-, and early-20th-century scientists. However, historians of tech­ nology may be interested in the first three essays, by McCormmach, Klein, and Michael Sokal, as illustrative of the range of approaches biographers may take. Readers of Technology and Culture will be much more interested in the final nine essays, which explore the relationship—or lack of one—among science, technology, and the larger culture. Of these nine, I recommend three most highly: Layton’s examination of the impact of Isaac Newton on American millwrights, Edward Jay Pershey ’s use of a large telescope to explore the relationship between science and technology in late-19th-century America, and Darwin Stapleton’s overview of industrial research in Cleveland from 1870 through 1930. My chief complaint about the second half of the book is the brevity of tbe essays. The amount of text is on the...