How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind

The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality

By: Paul Erickson, Judy L. Klein, Lorraine Daston, Rebecca Lemov, Thomas Sturm

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Hardcover | 22 November 2013 | Edition Number 1

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Hardcover
272 Pages

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2.35 x 1.65 x 0.21

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In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass. Its home was the human sciencesâ"psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among othersâ"and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind brings to life the peopleâ"Herbert Simon, Oskar Morgenstern, Herman Kahn, Anatol Rapoport, Thomas Schelling, and many othersâ"and places, including the RAND Corporation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Cowles Commission for Research and Economics, and the Council on Foreign Relations, that played a key role in putting forth a âCold War rationality.â Decision makers harnessed this picture of rationalityâ"optimizing, formal, algorithmic, and mechanicalâ"in their quest to understand phenomena as diverse as economic transactions, biological evolution, political elections, international relations, and military strategy. The authors chronicle and illuminate what it meant to be rational in the age of nuclear brinkmanship.

Industry Reviews

"This is an important book, one that should be read not just by historians of science but by anyone interested in the unique intellectual culture of Cold War America." (Hunter Heyck, University of Oklahoma)"

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