The Cold War and American science

Abstract

Is Michelangelo less of an artist because he was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel? This is the moral dilemma that Stuart Leslie presents in this book. The setting, however, is the Cold War. The story is “big science” and high technology. The actors are the brightest research scientific and engineering minds from MIT and Stanford, the military, and industry. And the drama is the race between two powers for technological and scientific supremacy. One infers from the book’s introduction that the author is a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University. This book was written with grants from the NSF and NEH. The author’s strong effort towards thorough research is evident from the 1103 footnotes. The history and events are well researched, but the book is also moral history. The author’s message is clear. There is no ambiguity about his position, he writes:

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