Science, American Style

"Nathan Reingold is a pioneer in history of science, continuously productive and influential.  The essays in this collection represent his best work."--Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, President, History of Science Society

What is distinctive about American science?

For thirty years, Nathan Reingold has been exploring the character of science in the United States. His lively and influential essays look at the ways American science reflects our culture, history, politics, geography, and myths. He meditates on the growth of a scientific community and institutions in this country, American attitudes toward the uses of science, and the behavior of scientists and their chroniclers. Reingold covers two hundred years of American science, from the Revolution to Hollywood's view of the Bomb, from science in the Civil War to the reception of refugee scientists in World War II.  Reingold's essays have played a key role in emergence of the history of American science as a major field of historical scholarship.

For this first gathering of Reingold's essays (all but one previously published), the author has added an introduction and prefaces to each essay explaining their personal and historiographic context. Essential, stimulating reading for anyone curious about the past, present, and future of science in America.

Nathan Reingold, Senior Historian at the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, was the editor of the Joseph Henry Papers. He is the co-editor of Science in America: A Documentary History, 1900-1939.