Article ID: CBB000651053

Constituting the Postwar Earth Sciences: The Military's Influence on the Environmental Sciences in the USA after 1945 (2003)

unapi

Doel, Ronald E. (Author)


Social Studies of Science
Volume: 33
Pages: 635--666


Publication Date: 2003
Edition Details: Special Issue: Earth Sciences in the Cold War
Language: English

The earth sciences expanded dramatically during the first decades of the Cold War. Their growth largely resulted from military patronage, for the earth sciences appeared vital to emerging weapons systems, such as guided missiles, and to the pursuit of anti-submarine warfare. The earth sciences were also seen as important for achieving US foreign-policy objectives. By the mid-1960s military funds had helped create myriad new academic institutes in the earth sciences, and military leaders joined with national security advisors in expanding space and oceanography as strategic fields. In the present paper, I explore the history and significance of this transformation. The prominence of the earth sciences after 1945 was unmatched since the wave of geological exploration in the 1870s, and represents an important revival of federal support for the field sciences. But the particular form the rise of the earth sciences took had great implications for the institutional, intellectual, and professional character of the environmental sciences in the US. I argue that patronage for military-relevant fields in the earth sciences shaped the questions that researchers asked and valued, and limited their interactions with colleagues in the biological realms of environmental sciences research.

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Article Cloud, John (2003) Introduction: Special Guest-Edited Issue on the Earth Sciences in the Cold War. Social Studies of Science (p. 629). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000651053/

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Authors & Contributors
Heymann, Matthias
Rispoli, Giulia
Kemmis, Gabrielle
Benjamin W. Goossen
Olšáková, Doubravka
Anthony Rimmington
Concepts
Government sponsored science
Science and war; science and the military
Cold War
Earth sciences
Science and politics
Science and government
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Greenland
Russia
Polar regions
Europe
Institutions
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
American Meteorological Society
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (U.S.)
National Weather Service (U.S.)
Lincoln Laboratory
International Geophysical Year (IGY)
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