Reflections on 200 years of science in the United States

Abstract

In spite of its obvious importance today, the history of the sciences in the USA is usually neither the subject for research nor part of courses taught by non-American historians. Nor is this history known and understood, particularly in Europe. This is in marked contrast to an avid interest in current US science policies and developments, which cannot be wholly explicable without an understanding of their historic origins. Broadly speaking, these origins are US variants of certain western European traditions resulting, as it were, in cults of knowledge, nation, and people. Science and scientists have flourished, but uneasily, in the resulting environment.