From Pugwash to Putin (WEB PDF) von Gerson S Sher

1. Author Gerson Sher is an authority on the subject of scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and the U.S. with an extensive career spanning decades coordinating these collaborative programs for the U.S. government and in the private sector.

2. This book is very timely with its focus on both the need for scientific collaboration and U.S.-Russian tensions as its dual topics.

3. This book is written in an engaging and conversational tone—with first-person narratives from the extensive interviews. Elements of memoir and eyewitness description make this history come alive for readers.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: The Timeline

1. The Deep Cold War and the Exchange Program

2. Détente and the Heyday of Massive Agreements

3. Sanctions and Perestroika

4. After the Fall: New Times, New Approaches

Part II: In Their Own Words

5. How Did It Start?

6. What Kept Them Going?

7. Scientific Accomplishments

8. Other Accomplishments

9. Problems

10. On the Nature of Sciences in the Former Soviet Union

11. Vignettes

Part III: Conclusion: So What?

12. What to Make of It All?

Appendix: List of Interviews

References

For 60 years, scientists from the United States and the Soviet Union participated in state-organized programs of collaboration. But what really happened in these programs? What were the hopes of the participants and governments? How did these programs weather the bumpiest years of political turbulence? And were the programs worth the millions of dollars invested in them?From Pugwash to Putin provides accounts from 63 insiders who participated in these programs, including interviews with scientists, program managers, and current or former government officials. In their own words, these participants discuss how and why they engaged in cooperative science, what their initial expectations were, and what lessons they learned. They tell stories of gravitational waves, classified chalkboards, phantom scientists, AIDS propaganda, and gunfire at meteorological stations, illustrating the tensions and benefits of this collaborative work. 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.

Gerson S. Sher spent twenty years as Program Coordinator for US-Soviet and East European Programs at the National Science Foundation, before providing leadership throughout the rest of his career to private and public foundations at the intersection of scientific cooperation, international affairs, and global security.