TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 335 quotations is often excellent. The greatest flaw in this book is weak organization. Some chapters unnecessarily repeat information given earlier or someone is introduced after previously being mentioned in passing. The later chapters seem to lose the thread of Oberth’s life and are often self-contained units whose relevance to the biography is unclear. Annoying errors (such as incorrect dates for the beginning of World War II and D day) are also too prevalent. Clearly, this is a book that could have used a stronger editorial hand. Finally, more information on Oberth’s political opinions would have been illuminating. The 1958 biography by Hans Hard makes much of Oberth’s German nationalism and lack of enthusiasm for Romania, which might help explain Oberth’s willingness to work for Nazi Ger many after 1938. The Barth book seems politically sanitized, perhaps because it was originally written in Romania (an earlier version was published in Bucharest in 1974). But all of these defects are merely distracting; they do not undermine the book’s essential contribution. Michael J. Neufeld Dr. Neufeld is visiting assistant professor of history at Colgate University. He has published an article entitled “German Artisans and Political Repression” in Journal of Social History and is revising for publication his dissertation on the Nuremberg skilled metalworkers in the 19th century. Currently he is working on the political, social, and intellectual contexts of the rocketry and spaceflight craze in Germany and Austria, 1923-33. Public History: An Introduction. Edited by Barbara J. Howe and Emory L. Kemp. Melbourne, Fla.: Robert E. Krieger, 1986. Pp. vii + 508; illustrations, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $32.95 (cloth); $27.50 (paper). Not the least of the legacies of the last two decades has been the estrangement of our academic intelligentsia from public service. Progressivism carried with it the conviction that men (and they were mostly men) of genteel learning and scruple, some with more than a smattering of the new social sciences, could and should serve the public weal. From Henry Adams to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., from Richard T. Ely to John K. Galbraith, the scholar’s calling was as much a public as a private one. “Public service” may now be one of the triad ofcriteria for academic retention and tenure (the other two being teaching and research), but historians, like scientists, venture beyond the university gates at their peril. What they fear arises from an exaggerated contrast between “pure” science and disinterested research and the presumably corrupt world of politics and profits. What they fear is the loss of vocational identity; and that they fear it reflects the moral uncertainty of post— World War II intellectual life. Thus the apologetic tone of this im 336 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE pressive primer on public history, and the confusion, implicit in the aggregate experience it describes, between the historian’s work as vocation, as occupation, and as commodity. To say this is not to denigrate the volume; indeed, it provides a badly needed overview ofthat large mix ofresearch, exhibitry, writing, and archival work for nonacademic clients commonly referred to as “public” history. Organized under the rubrics “Varieties of Public His tory” and “The Practice of Public History,” these thirty-odd essays by different practitioners reveal the importance of the historic preser vation movement and the military services in particular in providing an active clientele for historical research and interpretation. Much of that research is designed to provide documentation— graphic as well as verbal—of this country’s cultural heritage. Half a century from now, the work of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) is likely to be as important to the history oftechnology as any monograph being written today. But HAER receives scant attention here. Interpretation is typically designed to support civic celebration and the vast and diverse array of museums, natural mon uments, and historic sites cultivated and maintained by agencies like the National Park Service. Several essays discuss archival work, editing, and the role of his torians in policy analysis, planning, and evaluation. As for the larger question of the role of historical understanding in contemporary policy making, one can and should turn to Richard...