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Many thanks for retyping! The author of the article is Bernhard J. Stern, and it's also interesting to read about him: http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ar
by acqq 7y ago
Many thanks for retyping!
The author of the article is Bernhard J. Stern, and it's also interesting to read about him:
http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv62136 http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv62136
"In the early 1950's Bernhard Stern and his wife Charlotte Todes Stern, were among many Americans summoned by Senator McCarthy's Committee on Un-American Activities. Charlotte Stern was one of 25 literary names who defied the Committee and faced jail sentences. In addition, three of Stern's own books (all on medicine) were banned from the State Department's overseas libraries. As a result of this Committee's questioning and the "red scare", both the Sterns worked all the harder for the Bill of Rights guarantees."
His other article about technology:
Stern, B. J. (1945). The Challenge of Advancing Technology. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 242(1), 46–52. doi:10.1177/000271624524200107
The paper about him:
The intellectual in a time of crisis: The case of Bernhard J. Stern, 1894‐1956
Samuel W. Bloom, January 1990 https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(199001)26:1<17::AID-JHBS2300260103>3.0.CO;2-2 https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(199001)26:1<17::AID-JHBS23...
- dredmorbius 7y agoThe politicisation of much American (and British) academia during the height of the Cold War is its own interesting study. The field of economics (one I'm close too) seems particularly heavily hit, though Stern (largely working in sociology) clearly felt its effects. Sinologist Joseph Needham (I've commented numerous times on his Science and Civilisation in China, which I'd only recently discovered) also hit political turbulence due to his support of (and to unwitting duping by) the Communist China regime. Simon Winchester's biography tells that tale. I suspect this may be a reason why Winchester's work is not mentioned at all by that other British historian of technology and innovation, James Burke, of whom I'm also a fan. (Connections and The Day the Universe Changed.) (Late response, apologies.)