Reviews for Inventing Women:science,tech.+gender

The average rating for Inventing Women:science,tech.+gender based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-09-04 00:00:00 Bryan Williams Krememtsov argues that under the Stalinist regime there solidified a symbiosis between science and the state more complex than the image of oppression that dominated much of Western Cold War-era literature on science and its institutions in the Soviet Union. Krementsov shows that it was in fact a two-way relationship; scientists profited from and contributed to the system that was set up to control them. Krementsov writes, “… in fact, in pursuit of its interests, the state established a much more impressive and terrifying system of control over the scientific community than any critic of Soviet ‘totalitarianism’ could have imagined – and the scientific community, in pursuit of its interests, developed much more elaborate devices to avoid, elude, and exploit this control system than any advocate of ‘academic freedom’ could have reasonably hoped” (p. 4). The symbiosis that developed between the state and the scientific community occurred, says Krementsov, because neither was monolithic, and neither proceeded with a unified set of goals or policies. It was also made possible by the fact that scientists were attracted to the Bolshevik view of science as an instrument of national development. The system itself – burgeoning, centralized, hierarchical, and above all bureaucratic – developed this symbiotic relationship with the state because of total dependence on state coffers. The system evolved over the first couple decades of the Soviet Union, the Stalinzation only occurring in the 1930s and 1940s, after a period in which Soviet science was still primarily Russian (ie, still relied on “bourgeois” experts and institutions that had not yet been Bolshevized). WWII only strengthened this symbiosis, as Party members and bureaucrats found themselves relying more and more on scientists for the war effort. The following Cold War, however, brought renewed Party intervention in science. The most blatant case is that of T.D. Lysenko and genetics, in which Stalin directly intervened to promote Lysenko’s rise to power. Coming as it did at the height of the Cold War, Krementsov argues that Lysenko’s victory was more so the result of the impact of foreign policy on science policy at home as it was the result of ideology run amok within the scientific disciplines. The story of Stalinist science, then, is not one of disciplines shaped by ideological or political forces. Rather, it had to do with the arrangement and operation of scientific institutions – of a system of operation that, by the time of (and with the help of) Stalinization, had become pervasive (so much so that, according to Krementsov, it outlasted Stalinism). The establishment of this system began in the 1920s. With the nationalization of science by the Bolshevik party, a mode of patronage developed that gave scientists a pathway to the political elite, while simultaneously co-opting them into the new system of power relations. At the same time, the Bolsheviks also created their own set of experts and a separate but parallel institutional structure within which to keep them. Eventually, partly thanks to the rise of these new experts, all scientific institutions where integrated into this structure. With increasing levels of support for science in the 1930s came increasing control of science by the funding institutions. Scientists were forced to adopt the lexicon of the Party while seeking out new patrons within these ranks, which led to changes in the professional culture of Soviet scientists. It also forced them to adopt Stalinist rituals. None of this, however, made them unable to pursue their own goals within the system. It simply required them to do so in a prescribed manner.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-14 00:00:00 Michelle Boice This is the first of a two volume set describing the history of science from the earliest records until the early modern era. I have neither read nor seen the second volume, but was impressed enough by this one to pass it on to a dear friend with a scientific bent.