About this item
Scientists like to proclaim that science knows no borders. Scientific researchers follow the evidence where it leads, their conclusions free of prejudice or ideology. But is that really the case? In Freedom's Laboratory, Audra J. Wolfe shows how these ideas were tested to their limits in the high-stakes propaganda battles of the Cold War. Wolfe examines the role that scientists, in concert with administrators and policymakers, played in American cultural diplomacy after World War II. During this period, the engines of US propaganda promoted a vision of science that highlighted empiricism, objectivity, a commitment to pure research, and internationalism. Working (both overtly and covertly, wittingly and unwittingly) with governmental and private organizations, scientists attempted to decide what, exactly, they meant when they referred to "scientific freedom" or the "US ideology.
About the Author
Audra J. Wolfe, Ph.D. is a Philadelphia-based writer, editor, and historian. She is the author of Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America and the forthcoming Freedom's Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science. Her writing has appeared in both scholarly and more popular venues, including the Washington Post, The Atlantic.com, Slate, and the popular podcast American History Tellers. Originally from Indiana, Wolfe studied biochemistry and chemistry at Purdue University before completing her Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania.
