Book review: Cold War social science: knowledge production, liberal democracy, and human nature

"Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production, Liberal Democracy, and Human Nature." Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan. January 2012. --- From World War II to the early 1970s, social science research expanded in dramatic and unprecedented fashion. This volume examines how, why, and with what consequences this rapid expansion depended on the entanglement of the social sciences with the Cold War. The contributions reveal how scholars contributed to long-standing debates about knowledge production, liberal democracy, and human nature in an era of diplomatic tension and ideological conflict. Students should be introduced to this book in an effort to make them think critically about their own discipline’s relationship with the national and global context, writes Jason Brock.