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Technology and Culture 45.2 (2004) 459-460



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The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974. By Peter J. Westwick. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. x+403. $49.95.

Peter Westwick's examination of the evolution of that grand, federally fueled research engine, the U.S. national laboratory system, adds to a growing literature. The National Labs focuses on the period bracketed by the beginning of the cold war and the Limited Test Ban Treaty, and spotlights six Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) labs: Argonne, Berkeley, Brookhaven, Los Alamos, Livermore, and Oak Ridge.

Westwick argues that these institutions can best be understood in terms of "systemicity"—that is, by tracing their connections and noting the results of their interactions. Instead of providing the usual stories of individual labs or programs, Westwick tells the tale of how research evolved within the system as a whole. As he explains, this evolution depended upon negotiations at several sites, and "changes in the program of one lab had a ripple effect on the rest of the system." Thus, for example, the AEC decision to centralize reactor research at Argonne prompted a countereffort to establish reactor projects at Oak Ridge, Argonne's rival. In addition, the systemic structure of the labs "fostered specialization and diversification of lab programs and ensured the responsiveness of the labs to national priorities" (pp. 1-2). The history of the reactor program also proves this point: in response to the push for a national civilian nuclear power program, various specialized reactor projects emerged, such as Argonne's liquid-metal fast-breeder reactor, and reactor research diversified to include programs at Los Alamos as well as Oak Ridge and Argonne.

Westwick illuminates some unexplored avenues. Challenging the view that laboratories merely housed reactors and accelerators, he includes the development of computer, biomedical, solid-state, meteorological, inorganic chemistry, and materials science programs in his picture of laboratory life. This enlarged scope, in turn, allows for a more complete portrayal of the multidisciplinary connections that form the creative weave of laboratory work. He also provides an even more comprehensive view by including the usually invisible AEC program-managers, who "were the arbiters of systemicity" because they "refereed interlaboratory competition and enforced specialization when the labs could not attain it themselves" (p. 303).

In addition, Westwick weighs in on several important historiographical contentions. In opposition to Paul Forman's assertion that American physicists became captive to military patronage, Westwick concludes—in line with similar arguments made by Daniel Kevles—that "detailed examination of the national labs demonstrates that, despite their extensive work for national security, lab scientists proved adept at maintaining scientific independence" [End Page 459] (p. 300). He also sets the history of national labs into a broader cultural perspective. In his view, the lab system reveals how American ideals are compromised—or brought to life. While the national labs embodied undemocratic practices such as "government intervention in science through large-scale projects, secrecy, selective subsidies, and decisions made by scientists outside the political process," they also "represent the American ideals of laissez-faire competition that resonated with special strength in the context of the Cold War" (pp. 1-2).

Westwick has produced an important book. Laboratory historians have a new analytical framework, historians of technology have a more nuanced picture of the development of federally sponsored research, and those interested in recent U.S. history have a more comprehensive view of how America's main science and technology machine really works.


Dr. Westfall has written on the history of various U.S. national laboratories. She currently heads the history effort at Argonne National Laboratory.
Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer.


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