A look at the destructive history of science-for-profit, including its toll on the US pandemic response, by the author of A People's History of Science. Despite a facade of brilliant technological advances, American science has led humanity to the brink of interrelated disasters. In The Tragedy of American Science,historian of science Clifford D. Conner describes the dual processes by which this history has unfolded since the Second World War, addressing the corporatization and the militarization of science in the US. He examines the role of private profit considerations in determining the direction of scientific inquiry-and the ways those considerations have dangerously undermined the integrity of sciences impacting food, water, air, medicine, and the climate. In addition, he explores the relationship between scientific industries and the US military, discussing the innumerable financial and human scientific resources that have been diverted from other critical areas in order to further military aggrandizement and technological development. While the underlying problems may appear intractable, Conner compellingly argues that replacing the current science-for-profit system with a science-for-human-needs system is not an impossible utopian dream-and the first step to a better future is grappling with the mistakes of the past.

Clifford D. Conner is a historian of science at the School of Professional Studies, CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of A People's History of Science (Bold Type Books, 2005) and biographies of three revolutionaries: Jean Paul Marat, Arthur O'Connor, and Colonel Despard.

Foreword Table of Contents Epigraph Introduction PART 1: THE CORPORATIZATION OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 1 The Big Fat Lie 2 The Green Revolution 3 From Green Revolution to Gene Revolution 4 The Tobacco Strategy 5 Fraudulent Pharma 6 Spitting in the Well We Drink From 7 Atoms for Peace? 8 The Academic-Industrial Complex 9 Think Tanks and the Betrayal of Reason 10 The Dismal Science is Certainly Dismal, but is it Science? PART 2: THE MILITARIZATION OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 11 Science Harnessed to the Chariot of Destruction 12 A-Bombs and H-Bombs 13 Non-nuclear Technologies of Death 14 Bombers, Missiles, and Antimissiles 15 Video-Game War 16 Lethal Autonomy 17 Is Cyberwarfare Really a Thing? 18 American Exceptionalism and the Ultimate Perversion of the Behavioral Sciences PART 3: HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS… 19 The Explosive Birth of Big Science 20 Operation Paperclip: The Nazification of American Science 21 The RAND Corporation: From "Fuck You, Buddy" to Doomsday PART 4: ...AND THE ONLY WAY OUT 22 Is a Science-For-Human-Needs Possible? Acknowledgements Suggestions for Further Reading Notes