From the first scientific exchanges of the Cold War years through the years following the fall of the Soviet Union, Gerson S. Sher provides a sweeping and critical history of what happens when science is used as a foreign policy tool. Sher, a former manager of these cooperative programs, provides a detailed and critical assessment of what worked, what didn't, and why it matters.
* History of Science in Central, Eastern and SE Europe *
In From Pugwash to Putin, Gerson Sher expertly documents the history of cooperative scientific exchanges, first between the United States and Soviet Union, and then with Russia and the other post-Soviet states, focusing on the explosion of programs that developed following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Himself a key player in catalyzing those exchanges, Sher supplements his authoritative account of the state-to-state and institutional arrangements with stories from the Americans, Russians and others who made the cooperation real, often under challenging circumstances (for example, see The Expedition from Hell). While clearly a passionate supporter of science cooperation and of the maxim that science knows no borders, Sher assesses with candid objectivity the results of 60 years of exchanges-not just in advancing science, but in achieving other goals such as reducing proliferation risks, promoting better relations between Washington and Moscow, and commercializing new ideas.
-- Steven Pifer
Sher captures the human side of scientific exchanges while still giving appropriate attention to institutional and structural components. He is informed, experienced, and a natural storyteller whose style effortlessly infuses heart into what might have been dry policy analysis. The result is a stunning portrait of Cold War scientific cooperation, shining with the voices of those who sought to bring their ideals to life.
-- Rebecca Charbonneau * Physics Today *
Sher thus brings special knowledge to this study. He addresses such issues that administrators-and scientists-faced in their efforts to carry out exchanges as finances, logistics, disagreements over intellectual property, secrecy, corruption, and other concerns. Sher draws on a variety of primary and secondary sources, but the most important are excerpts of his over sixty interviews-conducted in a three week period-with scientists, diplomats, and officials from the United States and the USSR.
-- Paul Josephson * Russian Reviews *
Gerson Sher's From Pugwash to Putin: A Critical History of U.S.-Soviet Scientific Cooperation is an important contribution to the literature on U.S. and Soviet/Russian relations. After a lifetime of service, including twenty years as a program coordinator for National Science Foundation exchanges, Sher draws on his personal experience as well as interviews conducted with sixty-two participants-both Soviet and American-to construct an engaging narrative of international scientific cooperation during and after the Cold War. As such, the book offers new insights for historians, public policy scholars, and diplomats. . . . From Pugwash to Putin is a significant work and one that suggests that borders may enrich science because of different cultural approaches to research.
-- John Gregory Whitesides * Isis, Journal of the History of Science Society *
From Pugwash to Putin is part participant memoir, part sober reflection on the efforts made, their successes and failures, and part organized summary of about fifty oral history interviews which Sher conducted with former participants (scientists, diplomats, negotiators, and intermediaries).
-- Alexei Kojevnikov * H-Russia *
