The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974 [Hardcover]

Peter J. Westwick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674009487 | ISBN-13: 978-0674009486 | Publication Date: January 30, 2003

The national laboratories--Livermore, Berkeley, Los Alamos, Argonne, Oak Ridge, and Brookhaven--have occupied a central place in the landscape of American science for more than fifty years. Responsible for the development of nuclear weapons, reactors, and other technologies that shaped American policy and culture in the Cold War, scientists from these labs also pursued physical and biomedical research that fundamentally changed our understanding of nature. But all of this has come at great cost, in terms of finance, facilities, and manpower, and has forced major adjustments in the framework of American science.

Deeply researched and lucidly written, The National Labs is the first book to trace the confluence of diverse interests that created and sustained this extensive enterprise. Peter J. Westwick takes us from the origins of the labs in the Manhattan Project to their role in building the hydrogen bomb, nuclear power reactors, and high-energy accelerators, to their subsequent entry into such fields as computers, meteorology, space science, molecular biology, environmental science, and alternative energy sources. By showing us that the national laboratory system developed as a reflection of American ideals of competition and decentralization in the Cold War, Westwick also demonstrates how scientific institutions reflect the values of their surrounding political system and culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

As parts of a centrally controlled research effort directed largely to national security, the national laboratories run by the Atomic Energy Commission might have seemed more appropriate to the Soviet Union than to the United States. Peter Westwick resolves the paradox by treating the labs as linked elements in a typically American competitive-cooperative system. He uses the same concept to explain the labs' increasing diversification and their apparent redundancy. Westwick's lively analysis of the national labs as a system is a significant contribution to U.S. history and a model for the historian of modern scientific institutions.
--John L. Heilbron, author of The Sun in the Church (Harvard)

Oak Ridge, Hanford, Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, Livermore--all were laboratories to conjure with in the heyday of the Cold War. Westwick's book is the first to treat them together, as elements in the integrated national laboratory system that sprang up in the aftermath of World War II. He masterfully addresses their relationships to the larger Cold War culture and to each other. Deeply researched and clearly written, his book provides a rare close-up of the interplay of science, defense, and bureaucratic interest during a crucial period in the national labs' history.
--Daniel Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Yale University

A rich institutional history of the Atomic Energy Commission's laboratory system. It shows scientists and government officials working together creatively to produce the knowledge, skills, and technologies required by the national security state.
--John Krige, Kranzberg Professor, School of History, Technology and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology

The system of national laboratories is the main American contribution to the transformation of science in the twentieth century. The labs were a major force in developments from radar to reactors, from computers to quarks. It is high time for a study of the system as a whole. Westwick's book, thoroughly researched and intelligently argued, will surely become the standard work on the subject, valuable to everyone who wants to understand how our scientific community took on its present shape.
--Spencer Weart, Director of the Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics

The book is an almost encyclopedic review of the history and function of the national laboratories and therefore will be a very useful reference to the many scientists and historians interested in the subject.
--Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University

The National Labs is a fine addition to this extensive and sophisticated literature. It works best as a synthesis of previous arguments about the role of the weapons labs in recent American history and as a vehicle for understanding the relationship between American science and the modern federal establishment. Peter J. Westwick coins a new term, systemicity, as a unifying theme in this study, in the process emphasizing his contention that these facilities may only be understood as a diverse collection unified by a common goal and head but with significant centrifugal tendencies…The National Labs makes an important contribution to knowledge about the evolution of this set of research institutions between 1947, when the AEC began operation, and 1974, when the DOE took over responsibility for overseeing them…Westwick's synthesis is a valuable entrée into how these scientific institutions both altered and reflected the values of the United States during the Cold War.
--Roger D. Launius (Journal of American History )

The present book is a useful contribution to the ever growing literature on 'Big Science'. Based on extensive archival research at the U.S. National Archives and the individual national laboratories of the United States (Argonne, Brookhaven, Berkeley, Livermore, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge), the author sets out the early history of the national laboratory system in the United States describing the major programs and missions and the administrative choices and disputes in the period running from 1972-1962…In an effort to keep a lid on this diversity, the author maintains a steady eye on the overall structure of the system while covering individual programs such as the aforementioned highly bureaucratic reactor and particle accelerator programs in considerable detail.
--Peter Keating (History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences )

About the Author

Peter J. Westwick is a Senior Research Fellow in Humanities at the California Institute of Technology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (January 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674009487
• ISBN-13: 978-0674009486
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,838,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding Synthesis of a Complex Scientific Entity, December 20, 2003

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974 (Hardcover)

To help win the cold war the United States created a set of research institutions throughout the nation with the mission of ensuring that cutting edge science and technology found its way into the defense establishment. This set of "National Laboratories" had become so powerful by 1961 that President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address warned the American people not only about the "military-industrial complex" but also of the "danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." These laboratories have been under the nominal authority of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and later the Department of Energy (DoE). They included several entities associated with the Manhattan Project of World War II--Argonne, Berkeley, Brookhaven, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge--as well as later additions, such as the Lawrence Livermore installation. Together, these facilities undertook extensive strategic weapons research and development during a forty-year cold war.

This collection of laboratories, manufacturing plants, test sites, and think tanks possess complex origins and evolution and have attracted sustained historical inquiry. "The National Labs" is a fine addition to this extensive and sophisticated literature. It works best as a synthesis of previous arguments about the role of these weapons labs in recent American history and as a vehicle for understanding the relationship between American science and the modern federal establishment.

Author Peter J. Westwick coins a new term, "systemicity," as a unifying theme in this study, in the process emphasizing his contention that these facilities may only be understood as a diverse collection unified by a common goal and head but with significant centrifugal tendencies. For Westwick "systemicity" involves a changing set of alliances and rivalries central to the evolution of these weapons labs, negotiations abounding among those representing the various facilities and divergent priorities. These labs jockeyed for position and specialized or diversified in various areas to ensure primacy within the system. Their competition ensured the honing of skills perhaps not possible otherwise.

No doubt, "systemicity" as Westwick defines it has long been present, although one could question the value of advocating new jargon for what may be viewed as an obvious set of interactions. Similar interlocking themes may be seen in other distributed organizations ranging from such federal entities as NASA and the FAA, to private corporations such as General Motors and public/private entities such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or Intelsat.

Regardless of Westwick's creation of jargon "The National Labs" makes an important contribution to knowledge about the evolution of this set of research institutions between 1947, when the AEC began operation, and 1974, when DoE took over responsibility for overseeing them. He traces the evolution of the labs from their origins as the developers of nuclear weapons, reactors, and other technologies of destruction to diversification into physical, biomedical, and other types of research.

Throughout, these labs have profoundly affected ours lives and our understanding of nature. The broadness of their research, the high costs associated with operating them, and the importance of discoveries coming out of them ensures that this is an important subject of study. Westwick's synthesis is a valuable entrée into how these scientific institutions both altered and reflected the values of United States during the cold war.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Story About Lab Budgets, April 16, 2011

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Kris - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974 (Hardcover)

This book fills a quite specific niche. It is a detailed description of programmatic-level happenings in the National Lab system from WWII to about the mid 1960's (then to 1974 is just a post script at the end). As most of the lab's accomplishments during this period were classified, he states he got most of his info from budgets -- and it shows. The book focuses on fusion and fission weapon design and construction, and other weapons-related activities at the labs.

He assumes you are very familiar with the following things: WWII, the early Cold War, and the developments and players at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Hanford. He just jumps in assuming you know why these facilities were built and what they did. You also need a basic understanding of what is involved in these weapons, etc.

In places the book can be rather dry, because it is describing in great detail the budgetary processes that the labs went through to get and secure funding. This is material that people who worked at these labs probably didn't know the details of, so I don't necessarily agree that it is all that useful.

The information presented in this book is useful to see what were the drivers for the early labs, but I don't think you will get a feel for the labs themselves or what it would have been like to work at one.

This book really only covers Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Brookhaven labs; some other labs are mentioned in passing.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Boring, September 5, 2005

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Newton Ooi (Phoenix, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974 (Hardcover)

This book describes the origins and evolutions of the National Laboratories in the USA. These include Argonne, Los Alamos, Sandia, etc... The book begins by describing their origins during World War II as research labs for testing and designing various components for a nuclear weapon: delivery, fission, detonation, etc... The book shows how different scientists, businessmen, academics, and politicians played their parts in creating National Labs system. The book continues by showing how each lab grew to become specialized in specific fields, the rivalries between different labs and their directors, and how the labs interacted with other parts of the US bureacracy such as the different branches of the US military. In all the book is well referenced and easy to read, but this reviewer found the subject matter quite boring.