Results by title
4 books match the query 'Cravens, Hamilton'
Race and Science
Scientific Challenges to Racism in Modern AmericaPaul Farber
Oregon State University Press, 2009
Service as Mandate
How American Land-Grant Universities Shaped the Modern World, 1920–2015Edited by Alan I Marcus
University of Alabama Press, 2015
From their founding, land-grant schools have provided educational opportunities to millions, producing many of the nation’s scientific, technical, and agricultural leaders and spawning countless technological and agricultural innovations. Nevertheless, their history has not always been smooth or without controversy or setbacks. These vital centers of learning and research have in fact been redefined and reconceptualized many times and today bear only a cursory resemblance to their original incarnations.
The thirteen essays in this collection explore such themes as the emphasis on food science and home economics, the country life movement, the evolution of a public research system, the rise of aerospace engineering, the effects of the GI Bill, the teaching of military science, the sustainable agriculture movement, and the development of golf-turf science. Woven together, these expertly curated scenes, vignettes, and episodes powerfully illustrate these institutions’ ability to flex and adapt to serve the educational needs of an ever-changing American citizenry.
By dint of their mission to remedy social, economic, and technical problems; to improve standards of living; and to enhance the quality of life, land-grant universities are destined and intended to be agents of change—a role that finds them at times both celebrated and hotly contested, even vilified. A readable and fascinating exploration of land-grant universities, Service as Mandate offers a vital exploration of these dynamic institutions to educators, policy makers, students, and the wider communities that land-grant universities serve.
Technical Knowledge in American Culture
Science, Technology, and Medicine Since the Early 1800sEdited by Hamilton Cravens, Alan I Marcus, and David M. Katzman
University of Alabama Press, 1996
Addresses the relationships between what modern-day experts say to each other and to their constituencies
Technical Knowledge in American Culture is an interdisciplinary volume that brings together leading historians to investigate how science, technology, and medicine have shaped—and been shaped by—American intellectual and cultural traditions since the early nineteenth century. Rather than treating science and technology simply as products of social forces, the contributors examine them as forms of knowledge with their own internal logics, debates, and authority structures. The book asks a central question: how do experts—scientists, engineers, physicians—communicate with one another and with broader audiences, and how does that communication influence American society?
The volume is organized into three major sections, each anchored in a distinct historical moment: Part I: The Rise of Democratic Culture, 1800–1870; Part II: The Age of Hierarchy, 1870–1920; and Part III: Toward an Infinity of Dimensions (20th Century). Across its essays, the book argues that technical knowledge is not just a tool of progress—it is a cultural force shaped by communication, interpretation, and authority. By focusing on case studies rather than sweeping narratives, the volume reveals how expertise operates in practice and how it influences broader debates about science, society, and public trust.
The Social Sciences Go to Washington
The Politics of Knowledge in the Postmodern AgeEdited by Hamilton Cravens
Rutgers University Press, 2003
What happens when the allegedly value-free social sciences enter the national political arena? In The Social Sciences Go to Washington, scholars examine the effects of the massive influx of sociologists, demographers, economists, educators, and others to the federal advisory process in the postwar period. Essays look at how these social scientists sought to change existing policies in welfare, public health, urban policy, national defense, environmental policy, and science and technology policy, and the ways they tried to influence future policies.
Policymakers have been troubled that followers of postmodernism have questioned the legitimacy of scientific and political authority to speak for the desires of social groups. As the social sciences increasingly become expressions of individual preferences, the contributors ask, how can they continue to be used to set public policy for us all?
This collection is a useful resource for anyone studying the relationship between science and the government in the postwar years.