Scientific Research In World War II


Book Description

This book seeks to explore how scientists across a number of countries managed to cope with the challenging circumstances created by World War II. No scientist remained unaffected by the outbreak of WWII. As the book shows, there were basically two opposite ways in which the war encroached on the life of a scientific researcher. In some cases, the outbreak of the war led to engagement in research in support of a war-waging country; in the other extreme, it resulted in their marginalisation. The book, starting with the most marginalised scientist and ending with those fully engaged in the war-effort, covers the whole spectrum of enormously varying scientific fates. Distinctive features of the volume include: a focus on the experiences of ‘ordinary’ scientists, rather than on figureheads like Oppenheimer or Otto Hahn contributions from a range of renowned academics including Mark Walker, an authority in the field of science in World War II a detailed study of the Netherlands during the German Occupation This richly illustrated volume will be of major interest to researchers of the history of science, World War II, and Modern History.




American Science Policy Since World War II


Book Description

Looks at the history of government involvement in science, explains how scientific research is applied towards national goals, and suggests ways to revitalize national research.




Secret Weapons and World War II


Book Description

While previous writers have focused primarily on strategic, military, and intelligence factors, Walter Grunden underscores the dramatic scientific and technological disparities that left Japan vunerable and ultimately led to its defeat in World War II.




Scientists Against Time


Book Description

In early 1942, the fate of the Allies appeared dire. Germany had conquered most of Western Europe, and its armies were deep into Russia. Japan had overrun Manchuria, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies, had conquered large swathes of China, and had destroyed much of the US battle fleet at Pearl Harbor. But the tide of World War II turned dramatically in favor of the Allies, and in this, Allied scientists played a critical role. The chapters covered in this book include an Overview summary of the entire war, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic against the German U-boats, the battle for command of the air, the Allied breaking of the German Enigma cipher, D-Day and the Allied invasion of Europe, and the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. Harold Feiveson is a deep student of history, a masterful story teller and one of the pioneers in the global cooperative effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. This book provides a new, integrated overview of the remarkable technical achievements by the U.S. and British scientists who helped turn the tide of World War II. Although the war seemed endless to the participants, the number of world-shaping developments that occurred during the six years after the worlds industrialized countries committed themselves to total war is both remarkable and terrifying. The final breakthrough, nuclear weapons, led to a post-war nuclear-arms race whose dangerous legacy of destructive potential we are still struggling with today. -Frank von Hippel, Professor of Public andInternational Affairs emeritus, Princeton University An authoritative introduction to what Winston Churchill called the wizard war. Feivesons examination of the crucial role played by science and technology in World War II will appeal to both specialists and military history buffs. -Colonel Paul L Miles, U.S. Army, (Retired), former lecturer in history, Princeton University.




Science, the Endless Frontier


Book Description

The classic case for why government must support science—with a new essay by physicist and former congressman Rush Holt on what democracy needs from science today Science, the Endless Frontier is recognized as the landmark argument for the essential role of science in society and government’s responsibility to support scientific endeavors. First issued when Vannevar Bush was the director of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development during the Second World War, this classic remains vital in making the case that scientific progress is necessary to a nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Bush’s vision set the course for US science policy for more than half a century, building the world’s most productive scientific enterprise. Today, amid a changing funding landscape and challenges to science’s very credibility, Science, the Endless Frontier resonates as a powerful reminder that scientific progress and public well-being alike depend on the successful symbiosis between science and government. This timely new edition presents this iconic text alongside a new companion essay from scientist and former congressman Rush Holt, who offers a brief introduction and consideration of what society needs most from science now. Reflecting on the report’s legacy and relevance along with its limitations, Holt contends that the public’s ability to cope with today’s issues—such as public health, the changing climate and environment, and challenging technologies in modern society—requires a more capacious understanding of what science can contribute. Holt considers how scientists should think of their obligation to society and what the public should demand from science, and he calls for a renewed understanding of science’s value for democracy and society at large. A touchstone for concerned citizens, scientists, and policymakers, Science, the Endless Frontier endures as a passionate articulation of the power and potential of science.




Subjected to Science


Book Description

Susan Lederer provides the first full-length history of early biomedical research with human subjects. Lederer offers detailed accounts of experiments conducted on both healthy and unhealthy men, women, and children, during the period from 1890 to 1940, including yellow fever experiments, Udo Wile's "dental drill" experiments on insane patients, and Hideyo Noguchi's syphilis experiments.







Scientists at War


Book Description

Sarah Bridger examines the ethical debates that tested the U.S. scientific community during the Cold War, and scientists’ contributions to military technologies and strategic policymaking, from the dawning atomic age through the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) in the 1980s, which sparked cross-generational opposition among scientists.




Science and the State


Book Description

The first historical overview of the partnership between science and the state from the Scientific Revolution to World War II.




Taking Nazi Technology


Book Description

Intriguing, real-life espionage stories bring to life a comparative history of the Allies' efforts to seize, control, and exploit German science and technology after the Second World War. During the Second World War, German science and technology posed a terrifying threat to the Allied nations. These advanced weapons, which included rockets, V-2 missiles, tanks, submarines, and jet airplanes, gave troubling credence to Nazi propaganda about forthcoming "wonder-weapons" that would turn the war decisively in favor of the Axis. After the war ended, the Allied powers raced to seize "intellectual reparations" from almost every field of industrial technology and academic science in occupied Germany. It was likely the largest-scale technology transfer in history. In Taking Nazi Technology, Douglas M. O'Reagan describes how the Western Allies gathered teams of experts to scour defeated Germany, seeking industrial secrets and the technical personnel who could explain them. Swarms of investigators invaded Germany's factories and research institutions, seizing or copying all kinds of documents, from patent applications to factory production data to science journals. They questioned, hired, and sometimes even kidnapped hundreds of scientists, engineers, and other technical personnel. They studied technologies from aeronautics to audiotapes, toy making to machine tools, chemicals to carpentry equipment. They took over academic libraries, jealously competed over chemists, and schemed to deny the fruits of German invention to any other land—including that of other Allied nations. Drawing on declassified records, O'Reagan looks at which techniques worked for these very different nations, as well as which failed—and why. Most importantly, he shows why securing this technology, how the Allies did it, and when still matters today. He also argues that these programs did far more than spread German industrial science: they forced businessmen and policymakers around the world to rethink how science and technology fit into diplomacy, business, and society itself.