Book cover of The Politics of Pure Science

Book description

This work examines the place of science in American politics and society. Dispelling the myth of scientific purity and detachment, Daniel S. Greenberg documents the political processes that underpinned government funding of science from the 1940s to the 1970s. While the book's hard-hitting approach earned praise from a broad audience,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Politics of Pure Science as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love how this book tells a dramatic story about dark corruption at the heart of modern science set after the Second World War, especially in the USA. Physicists allowed politicians to think that the vast sums of money they gave to physics would result in weapons even more terrible than the atomic bomb. But actually, the money was spent on particle colliders, experimental devices that had nothing to do with weapons of war. 

Scientific funding was based on a quagmire of duplicity and deception, and Greenberg tells this story vividly and grippingly. I first read the book with the…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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