Science, Politics and the Public Good: Essays in Honour of Margaret Gowing

276 Pages·1988·13.106 MB·English

by  Nicolaas A. Rupke (eds.)

SCIENCE, POLITICS AND THE PUBLIC GOOD
Margaret Gowing
Science, Politics and
the Public Good
Essays in Honour of Margaret Gowing
Edited by
Nicolaas A. Rupke
Wolfson College, Oxford
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
© Nicolaas A. Rupke 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-44159-6
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First published 1988
Published by
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Companies and representatives
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Science, politics and the public good: essays
in honour of Margaret Gowing.
1. Science and state
I. Rupke, Nicolaas A. II. Gowing, Margaret
500 0125
ISBN 978-1-349-09516-2 ISBN 978-1-349-09514-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09514-8
Contents
Frontispiece: Margaret Gowing
List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables viii
Preface ix
Notes on the Contributors xiii
1 Margaret Gowing: an Appreciation
Lord Bullock
2 Science and Government: John Phillips (1800-74) and
the Early Ordnance Geological Survey of Britain 7
Jack Morrell
3 Science and the Public Good: George Biddell Airy
(1801-92) and the Concept of a Scientific Civil Servant 36
Allan Chapman
4 The Road to Albertopolis: Richard Owen (1804-92) and
the Founding of the British Museum of Natural History 63
Nicolaas A. Rupke
5 Sonar, Wireless Telegraphy and the Royal Navy:
Scientific Development in a Military Context, 1890-1939 90
Willem Hackmann
6 The Rockefeller Foundation and German Biomedical
Sciences, 1920-40: from Educational Philanthropy to
International Science Policy 119
Paul Weindling
7 Science and Power in the Soviet Union 141
David Holloway
v
VI Contents
8 Forty Years into the Atomic Age 160
Sir Rudolf Peierls
9 Radiation, Language and Logic 169
Lorna Arnold
10 Labour and the Origins of the National Health Service 184
Charles Webster
11 Economists and Engineers 203
Sir Alec Cairncross
12 Public History in the United States: a Retrospective
Appraisal 216
Richard Hewlett
13 Postscript 239
Sir Michael Howard
A List of the Published Work of Margaret Gowing 241
Index 247
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece: Margaret Mary Gowing, aet. 65, at the time of her
retirement
Figure 6.1 German Rockefeller Fellowships, 1922-39 129
vii
List of Tables
5.1 Main British Wireless Telegraphy and Anti-Submarine
Research Centres during the First World War 101
6.1 Rockefeller Foundation Support for German Science,
1922-26 127
viii
Preface
At the end of the academic year 1985-86, Professor Margaret Mary
Gowing (b 26 April 1921) retired from the Chair of the History of
Science at Oxford. The purpose of this book of essays is to honour
Margaret Gowing on the occasion of her retirement. As pointed
out in the introductory 'Appreciation' (Chapter 1), and again in a
concluding 'Postscript' (Chapter 13), Professor Gowing's magna
opera on the history of British atomic energy helped to make the
history of science an essential part of the mainstream of public
history. The story of the atomic bomb and of atomic power
dramatically demonstrates the close interconnections between scien
tific ideas, technological innovation, industrial enterprise, national
government and international affairs. Professor Gowing has explored
this 'old and intimate relationship' (as she called the connection
between science and politics), not only in her books on 'Britain and
atomic energy', but also in her Inaugural Lecture and her Wilkins,
Bernal, Rede and Spencer Lectures (see the bibliography on
pp. 241--6). Thus the title of our Festschrift, Science, Politics and
the Public Good, aptly expresses the general theme of Professor
Gowing's reuvre.
The contributors to this volume belong to Professor Gowing's
wide circle of colleagues and friends, junior as well as senior. Each
contributor addresses a particular aspect of the general theme of
her work, and in each chapter a specific instance is discussed of the
close relationship between science, politics and public welfare. Our
examples are taken from the past 150 years, from a wide range of
subject-matter, and from four different countries, namely the UK,
Germany, the US and Russia. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 focus on the
Victorian period when state endowment of scientific research first
became an intensely political question in Britain. Chapters 5 and 6
discuss examples from the early decades of the twentieth century
when the First World War and the emergence of the Nazi ideology
cast a dark shadow over parts of scientific research. This shadow
grew considerably more ominous when, by the end of the Second
ix