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Science, democracy, and the American university : from the Civil War to the Cold War
\"This book reinterprets the rise of the natural and social sciences as sources of political authority in modern America. Andrew Jewett demonstrates the remarkable persistence of a belief that the scientific enterprise carried with it a set of ethical values capable of grounding a democratic culture - a political function widely assigned to religion. The book traces the shifting formulations of this belief from the creation of the research universities in the Civil War era to the early Cold War years. It examines hundreds of leading scholars who viewed science not merely as a source of technical knowledge, but also as a resource for fostering cultural change. This vision generated surprisingly nuanced portraits of science in the years before the military industrial complex and has much to teach us today about the relationship between science and democracy.
Book
Settlers, Liberty, and Empire
Traces the emergence of a revolutionary conception of political authority on the far shores of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Based on the equal natural right of English subjects to leave the realm, claim indigenous territory and establish new governments by consent, this radical set of ideas culminated in revolution and republicanism. But unlike most scholarship on early American political theory, Craig Yirush does not focus solely on the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century. Instead, he examines how the political ideas of settler elites in British North America emerged in the often-forgotten years between the Glorious Revolution in America and the American Revolution against Britain. By taking seriously an imperial world characterized by constitutional uncertainty, geo-political rivalry and the ongoing presence of powerful Native American peoples, Yirush provides a long-term explanation for the distinctive ideas of the American Revolution.
eBook
Experiencing nature : the Spanish American empire and the early scientific revolution
“A very significant contribution. . . . This book tells a story that is usually left out of the master narrative of the history of exploration. . . . Moreover, it tells a story based on real expeditions and experiences, and it quotes liberally and effectively from engaging reports and sixteenth-century treatises, so it should appeal to general readers as well.” -Carla Rahn Phillips, Union Pacific Professor in Comparative Early Modern History, University of Minnesota As Spain colonized the Americas during the sixteenth century, Spanish soldiers, bureaucrats, merchants, adventurers, physicians, ship pilots, and friars explored the natural world, gathered data, drew maps, and sent home specimens of America's vast resources of animals, plants, and minerals. This amassing of empirical knowledge about Spain's American possessions had two far-reaching effects. It overturned the medieval understanding of nature derived from Classical texts and helped initiate the modern scientific revolution. And it allowed Spain to commodify and control the natural resources upon which it built its American empire. In this book, Antonio Barrera-Osorio investigates how Spain's need for accurate information about its American colonies gave rise to empirical scientific practices and their institutionalization, which, he asserts, was Spain's chief contribution to the early scientific revolution. He also conclusively links empiricism to empire-building as he focuses on five areas of Spanish activity in America: the search for commodities in, and the ecological transformation of, the New World; the institutionalization of navigational and information-gathering practices at the Spanish Casa de la Contratación (House of Trade); the development of instruments and technologies for exploiting the natural resources of the Americas; the use of reports and questionnaires for gathering information; and the writing of natural histories about the Americas.
eBook
Disrupting Science
In the decades following World War II, American scientists were celebrated for their contributions to social and technological progress. They were also widely criticized for their increasingly close ties to military and governmental power--not only by outside activists but from among the ranks of scientists themselves. Disrupting Science tells the story of how scientists formed new protest organizations that democratized science and made its pursuit more transparent. The book explores how scientists weakened their own authority even as they invented new forms of political action.
eBook
Individualism in the United States : a transformation in American political thought
\"A comprehensive look at the foundations, and current state of individualism in the US, including an assessment of the implications for American democracy and citizenship\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Outside the law : emergency and executive power
The origins of presidential claims to extraconstitutional powers during national crises are contentious points of debate among constitutional and legal scholars. The Constitution is silent on the matter, yet from Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War to George W. Bush's creation of the \"enemy combatants\" label, a number of presidents have invoked emergency executive power in defense of actions not specifically endorsed in the Constitution or granted by Congress.
Taking up the debate, Clement Fatovic digs into the intellectual history of the nation's founding to argue that the originators of liberal constitutional theory explicitly endorsed the use of extraordinary, extralegal measures to deal with genuine national emergencies. He traces the evolution of thought on the matter through the writings of John Locke, David Hume, William Blackstone, and the founding fathers, finding in them stated support for what Locke termed \"prerogative, \" tempered by a carefully construed concept of public-oriented virtues. Fatovic maintains that the founders believed that moral character and republican decency would restrain the president from abusing this grant of enhanced authority and ensure that it remained temporary.
This engaging, carefully considered survey of the conceptions of executive power in constitutional thought explains how liberalism's founders attempted to reconcile the principles of constitutional government with the fact that some circumstances would demand that an executive take normally proscribed actions. Scholars of liberalism, the American founding, and the American presidency will find Fatovic's reasoned arguments against the conventional wisdom enlightening.
eBook
Technical knowledge in American culture : science, technology, and medicine since the early 1800s
Technical Knowledge in American Culture addresses the relationships between what modern-day experts say to each other and to their constituencies and whether what they say and do relates to the larger culture, society, and era. These essays challenge the social impact model by looking at science, technology, and medicine not as social activities but as intellectual activities.
eBook