1st Edition

Cold Science Environmental Knowledge in the North American Arctic during the Cold War

Edited By Stephen Bocking, Daniel Heidt Copyright 2019
    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    Science during the Cold War has become a matter of lively interest within the historical research community, attracting the attention of scholars concerned with the history of science, the Cold War, and environmental history. The Arctic—recognized as a frontier of confrontation between the superpowers, and consequently central to the Cold War—has also attracted much attention. This edited collection speaks to this dual interest by providing innovative and authoritative analyses of the history of Arctic science during the Cold War.

    List of Contributors





    Part 1. Introductory perspectives



    1. Introduction: Cold War science in the North American Arctic



    Stephen Bocking and Daniel Heidt





    Part 2. Strategic science



    2. Ice and the depths of the ocean: probing Greenland's Melville Bay during the Cold War



    Mark Nuttall





    3. Leadership, cultures, the Cold War and the establishment of Arctic scientific stations: situating the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS)



    P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Daniel Heidt





    4. Frontier footage: science and colonial attitudes on film in Northern Canada, 1948–1954



    Matthew S. Wiseman





    5. Portraying America's last frontier: Alaska in the media during the Second World War and the Cold War



    Victoria Herrmann





    6. Making 'Man in the Arctic': academic and military entanglements, 1944–49



    Matthew Farish





    Part 3. Cold War economies



    7. Arctic pipelines and permafrost science: North American rivalries in the shadow of the Cold War, 1968–1982



    Robert Page





    8. Cold oil: linking strategic and resource science in the Canadian Arctic



    Stephen Bocking





    9. Icebergs in Iowa: Saudi dreams, Antarctic hydrologics and the production of Cold War environmental knowledge



    Rafico Ruiz





    10. Science and Indigenous knowledge in land claims settlements: negotiating the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, 1977–1978



    Andrew Stuhl





    Part 4. Science crossing borders



    11. Knowledge base: polar explorers and the integration of science, security, and US foreign policy in Greenland, from the Great War to the Cold War



    Dawn Alexandrea Berry





    12. Institutions and the changing nature of Arctic research during the early Cold War



    Lize-Marié van der Watt, Peder Roberts, and Julia Lajus



    13. Rockets over Thule? American hegemony, ionosphere research and the politics of rockets in the wake of the 1968 Thule B-52 accident



    Henrik Knudsen





    14. Applied science and practical cooperation: Operation Morning Light and the recovery of Cosmos 954 in the Northwest Territories, 1978



    P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Ryan Dean





    15. Melting the ice curtain: indigeneity and the Alaska Siberia Medical Research Program, 1982–1988



    Tess Lanzarotta





    Part 5. Epilogue: global Cold War—the Antarctic and the Arctic



    16. Antarctic science and the Cold War



    Adrian Howkins



    Index

    Biography

    Stephen Bocking is a Professor with the Trent School of the Environment at Trent University, Canada.



    Daniel Heidt is the Research and Administration Manager at the Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism, St. Jerome's University, Canada.