The Cold War & the university : toward an intellectual history of the postwar years / Noam Chomsky ... [and others].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Chomsky, Noam.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Education, Higher--Political aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Education, Higher.

Cold War.

Education, Higher--United States--History--20th century.

Education, Higher--Political aspects.

History.

United States.

United States--Intellectual life--20th century.

Intellectual life.

Physical Description:

xxxvii, 258 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Cold War and the university

Place of Publication:

New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., [1997]

Summary:

The years following 1945 witnessed a massive change in American intellectual thought and in the life of American universities. The vast effort to mobilize intellectual talent during the war established new links between the government and the academy. After the war, many of those who had worked with the military or the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) took jobs in the burgeoning postwar structure of university-based military research and the intelligence agencies, bringing infusions of government money into many fields. Little has been written about the long-term impact of this close association, despite considerable study of the McCarthy period's destructive impact on academic careers. The Cold War and the University is a groundbreaking collection of newly commissioned essays that takes a bold first step toward the reconstruction of this history. In it, some of the country's most prominent intellectuals use their own experiences to explore what happened to the university in the postwar years and why. In wide-ranging and revealing essays, these writers show the many ways existing disciplines, such as anthropology, were affected by the Cold War ethos; they discuss the rise of new fields, such as area studies; and they explore the changing nature of dissent and academic freedom during and since the Cold War.

Contents:

The Cold War and the transformation of the Academy / R.C. Lewontin

The politics of history in the era of the Cold War / Howard Zinn

English and the Cold War / Richard Ohlmann

The phantom factor / Laura Nadar

Doing earth science research during the Cold War / Ray Siever

The Cold War and the university / Noam Chomsky

The unintended consequences of Cold War area studies / Immanuel Wallerstein

The subtle politics of developing emergency / Ira Katznelson

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

1565840054

OCLC:

34849814