Assignments


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There are two writing assignments: a review of a book from a supplied list (due in class session #5), and a research paper (25-35 double-spaced pages, due in class session #8).

Book Review

For the book review, you should select one of the following books and write a brief review (4-5 double-spaced pages). To prepare for your review, you should look at recent book reviews (of any book) in journals such as Isis, Technology and Culture, British Journal for the History of Science, Annals of Science, Metascience, and so on: how do those reviews balance summary of the book in question with description of how the book fits into the larger literature and critique of the book's argument?

Books Available for Review

Amazon logo Robin, Ron. The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691011714. [Preview in Google Books]

Amazon logo Mirowski, Philip. Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521775267. [Preview in Google Books]

Amazon logo Amadae, Sonja. Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780226016535. [Preview in Google Books]

Amazon logo Light, Jennifer. From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780801874222. [Preview in Google Books]

Amazon logo Lemov, Rebecca. World As Laboratory: Experiments with Mice, Mazes, and Men. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2005. ISBN: 9780809074648.

Amazon logo Reisch, George. How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780521837972. [Preview in Google Books]

Amazon logo Osgood, Kenneth. Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006. ISBN: 9780700614455.

Research Paper

Research papers should be based on original research, drawing on unpublished primary sources (archival, interviews, etc.) where appropriate, in addition to relevant secondary sources.