Pun Salad

Well, one minor gripe: the "Cold War" reference in the book's subtitle is kind of a fakeout. Yes, most of the intellectual action the author, Erika Lorraine Milam, describes here takes place in that era. But the Soviet Union didn't really have much to do with it, much less Red China. The slim connecting reed: one of Milam's narrative threads describes the American panic over Sputnik, which launched a major educational effort to push kids into scientific and technical careers.

I know: I was somewhat shaped by that effort myself. I still recall the brand spanking new textbooks in my high school science courses. And one of the components of my college financial aid package was a "National Defense Student Loan", part of the 1958 National Defense Education Act.

But apart from that major bit of social engineering, that era saw an upsurge in science interest from the general public. Cheap pop-science paperbacks from folks like Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, Isaac Asimov, George Gamow, etc. were given a prominent position on the racks. (I devoured Gamow's One, Two, Three, … Infinity myself; 'twas another life-changer for me.) The Time-Life Science Library! Magazines like Popular Science, National Geographic, … I could go on.

Let's get back to the book: Milam looks at how the thorny topic of "human nature" evolved during this era, a complex tale involving paleontologists, anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, primatologists, sociologists, … The slight relevance to the Cold War: the overshadowing possibility of nuclear armageddon had people wondering if mankind was doomed by its inherent intra-species aggressive tendencies to seek out bigger and better weapons, the better to destroy itself. Popularizers included Desmond Morris, Robert Ardrey, Richard Dawkins, and many more. With the discussion and debates carrying on today.

As you might guess, the political and social implications of such research impacted subsequent popularizations and discussions. The issue was not just aggression, but also (oh oh) matters of race and sex. As always, when ideology and science collide, neither one comes out looking well. The bitter controversy over (for example) Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology is covered extensively; To her credit, Milam's coverage is even-handed.

Random observation: although Jane Goodall's work with chimps is extensively covered, there's nothing about bonobos, their relatively peaceful cousins. Maybe that research happened outside Milam's adopted timeframe? I don't know.

Fun fact: on which popular television show was the word "penis" first uttered? The answer may be found on page 113. (Or you can just read this Reason review, which put the book on my get-at-library list.)