Between Regions_ Science, Militarism, Hy From World War to Cold War Trevor J. Barnes and Matthew...

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Between Regions: Science, Militarism, and American Geography from World War to Cold WarAuthor(s): Trevor J. Barnes and Matthew FarishSource: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 96, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp.807-826Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.on behalf of the Association of American GeographersStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4124459.

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2/21

Between

egions:

cience,Militarism,

ndAmerican

Geography

rom

World

War

to Cold War

Trevor

J.

Barnes* and Matthew

Farisht

*Department

f

Geography,

niversityf

Britisholumbia

tDepartment

f

Geography,

niversityf

Toronto

HistoriesfAmerican

eographic

hought

nd

practice

ave

ketched,

utnot

ritically

xplored,

he elation-

ship

etween

ar,

ntellectual

hange,

nd the

production

f

patial

nowledge.

his rticleheds

ight

n a

crucial

eriod,

hemiddle ecades f he wentieth

entury,

hen ewmodes f

nderstanding

nd

representing

geography

ere

eing

ormulatedt a

variety

f ites

cross he

nation-state,

rom

rincetono the

University

f

Washington.

n

particular,

here

merged

naltered

onception

f

egion,

ot

s a

descriptive

ut

s a

theoretical

unit. his ntellectual

ransformation,

riven

y

n

invigorated

cientific

mperative,

as

closely

edded o

broader

eopolitical

onditionsf

war ndmilitarism-tohedemandsor

yntheticegional

ntelligence

nd

new ollectivesf esearch

hat ould

dequately

ddress

omplex

echnicalnd ocial

hallenges

onsistentith

globalnfluence.ovingromhe ormativeub f heOfficef trategicervicesothemore iffuseut o ess

powerful

tructuresf

ColdWar

unding,

e chart he

mergence

f new

egional

odel,

nextricably

inked

and oncurrentith he olidification

f worldf

trategicegionspen

o he xertionf

American

ower,

ut

also

part

f remarkable

mergent

echnoscientific

omplex

thome.

ey

Words: old

War,

egion,

econdWorld

War,

echnoscience.

Kirk

Stone,

who

received is offero

join

the

Office f

Strategic

ervices

he

day

after earl

Harbor

Dobson

et al.

1999,

537),

may

have

been

exaggerating

henhe

said:

"WorldWar

I

was the

best

thing

hat has

happened

o

geography

ince the

birth f

trabo"

Stone

1979,

9),

but

learly

he

econd

WorldWarand theearly ears f thesubsequentold

War coincidedwith

a

significant

hiftn American

geographical

hought.

he hallmarkf the

change

was

an altered dea of

cience,

mademanifest

n

a different

conception

nd treatmentf

"region,"ong

a corner-

stone f

geographical

nquiry.

The traditionalotion f

cience eld

by

geographers

arrived rom atural

istory,

hichwas

field-based,

e-

scriptive,

ested n

scrupulously

ecorded

bservationsf

a lone

cholar,

ndtended

oward

lassification,

ven he

encyclopedic.

egions

were

portrayedorrespondingly.

During

he

econdWorldWar nd

afterward,owever,

differentodel f cience merged,neproducednthe

crucible

f

war,

othhot and

cold,

nd

forgedhrough

interaction

mong

cientists,

he

military,ndustry,

nd

the tate.

his science

appened

t the ab bench

r at

the

writing

esk,

nvolved

arge

umsof

money

nd a

team of

researchers

"big

science"),

was

theoretically

abstract,

mathematical,

ftenmodel-

and machine-

based,

nd

geared

oward

meeting

pecific

nds.We ar-

gue

that his

onception

f ciencemade ts

way,

lbeit

haltingly,

nto

postwar

American

human

geography.

Accordingly,

t

produced very

ifferentdea of

region,

conceived

now as

explanatory,

heoretical,

nd instru-

mental,

tool

to achieve unctional

bjectives.

This new

conception

f

cience,

ound

up

with

mid-

twentieth

entury eopolitical pheaval

nd

pervasive

militarism,

hanged

the intellectual

rajectories

f

a

number fnatural nd socialsciences n the United

States. To use Andrew

ickering's

1995a)

term,

he

Second WorldWar

and

subsequent

old War

repre-

sented n

epochal

hange.

he

world,

ncluding

heworld

of the

mind,

was

ruptured

nd remade. aul Forman's

(1989)

investigation

f

the effect f the Cold

War on

physics

as the first f

the studies o make this

point

clear,

nd since hen

etailed istories

avebeenwritten

of

psychology

Herman

1995),

economics

Mirowski

2002),

anthropology

Price 1998),

molecular

iology

(Kay

2000),

and the

philosophy

f science

(Reisch

2005).

The

specific

onsequences

nd

mechanismsf

rupturearied ccordingo thediscipline,ut n each

case SecondWorldWar

and Cold War

science eft ts

mark,

molding

or ecades o come

subject's

methods,

practices,

nternal

ociology,

nd

objects

f

nvestigation.

We

argue

hat

geography

hould lso be on this

ist;

t

represents

n

especially

nteresting

ase

study

iven

hat

it

straddles

cience

nd the

humanities.1

Apart

from hishistorical

mperative,

his

rticle s

also

impelled

y

theoretical

rguments

ithin

cience

studies,

articularly

ndy Pickering's

1995a,

1995b)

Annals

f

heAssociation

f

American

eographers,

6(4),

2006,

pp.

807-826

?

2006

by

Association fAmerican

eographers

Initial

ubmission,

ebruary

005;

revised

ubmissions,

anuary

nd

April

006;

final

cceptance,

pril

006

Published yBlackwell ublishing,50 MainStreet,Malden,MA 02148,and 9600Garsingtonoad,Oxford X4 2DQ, U.K.

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3/21

808

Barnes nd Farish

work n what

he calls

the "WorldWar

I

regime,"

nd

Donna

Haraway's

1997, 15)

attempt

o understand

"contemporary

illenarian

echnoscience,"

heroots f

which or er

ie

precisely

n WorldWar

I

and theCold

War

Haraway

997,

chap.

2).

Pickering

nd

Haraway

areusefulecause oth re oncernedounderstandhe

formation,

oherence,

nd nfluencef

the

arge

cien-

tific

nterdisciplinary

ssemblage

hat

first

merged

n

the United

tates

during

he SecondWorld

War.Pick-

ering's

nterests

in

the

origin

f the

radically

ifferent

matrix f cience

nd

associated

ractices

hat urfaced.

For

him,

toccurred

ecause fwhat e calls

mangling,"

an interactiveransformative

rocess

mixing

nd inte-

grating

lements

n

combinations

ever seen before.

Haraway's

oncern

s with he

power

f

echnosciencen

effectingarge-scale

hange

by "hailing"

ew

subjects

and

enrolling

hem

nto hat

ssemblage.

ur

argument

is thatthe SecondWorldWar and Cold War science

assemblage,

ecause

of ts

ability

o

mix

and

integrate

("to

mangle")

s well

as "to

hail,"

nlisted

eography,

resulting

n

a dramatic

isciplinary

ewriting

f the

meaning

f cience nd

consequently

f

he

very

dea of

region.

This article s divided

nto

four ections.

irst,

we

situate ur

rgument

ithin he

arger

orpus

fwork n

SecondWorldWar nd

Cold War ulturesf cience nd

social science.We

begin

with ome brief heoretical

points

nd then ketch

he alient istorical

ackground.

Second,

by way

f a

benchmark,

e discuss

riefly

he

conceptionf science nd theplace ofregionwithin

prewar

merican

eographicalhought

nd,

n

particu-

lar,

RichardHartshorne's

1939)

formulations

n

The

Nature

f

Geography,

till

iewed s a classic

isciplinary

statement

but

ikemost lassic

isciplinary

tatements,

rarely

ead).

Two

years

fterHartshorne

roduced

is

tome,

America

was

at

war

nd Hartshorne imselfc-

cupied

key

dministrative

osition

ithin heOffice f

Strategic

ervices

OSS),

the

gency

stablished

n

1941

to

provide

military

nd

political ntelligence

o the

President,

nd theforerunner

f heCentral

ntelligence

Agency

CIA).

Hartshorne

as

notthe

only

eographer

employedt theOSS, however.t tsheight, ore han

a hundred

geographers

orked

here.The article's hird

section, hen,

llustrates ow the

experiences

f

carrying

out

operations

t

OSS,

at least those of a few

key

ndi-

viduals who were later to be so

important

n

shaping

postwar eographical hought, elped

to

forge

different

conception

of

science,

nd

thusof

region-one

thatwas

increasingly

nstrumentalnd

applied.

OSS

geographers

recognized

hat

achieving

he

military

nd

political

nds

mandated for the

organization

equired systematicity,

explanatory urchase,

and

practical

focus-all difficult

to realize ith he lder

onception

f

geography

nd he

methodologies

nderpinning

t.

Fourth,

e discuss

ow

thisnew

sensibility

as

subsequently

urther

eveloped

during

he Cold War

as

geography

as formalizeds a

spatial

cience of

society.

n

turn,

his

formalization

producednddependedn a conceptionfregions a

generalized

tructural

henomenon,

ubject

o

uniform

underlying

orces hatcould be

identifiednd

instru-

mentally

irected,

nd

given

ationale

nd

egitimacyy

Cold

War cience.

The

Conception

fCold WarScience

Militaryower

xtendednto heworld

f hemind.

-(Kay

2000,

1)

During he SecondWorldWar and theearlyCold

War,

he entire arthbecamea

generalizedpace

of

American

ilitary

trategy.

entral

o that

ndeavor as

a new

conception

nd

practice

f cience

nd,

ncreas-

ingly,

ocial

cience. n his

1941

President's

eport,

he

Massachusettsnstitute f

Technology's

MIT's)

Karl

Compton

1941,369),

writing

romhe

ampus

with he

most

t stake

n

wartimecientific

esearch,

erceived

"the

outlines

f n educationalnd

research

nstitution

based

upon

the

present

deals and

objectives

ut

n-

corporating

greatlymagnifiedapacity

ornational

service."

ompton's

isionwas

realized:

y

the end of

thewar,MIT was America'sargest niversityefense

contractor,

nd t

fought

or hat

osition

hroughout

he

Cold War.The Institute's

nnual

reports

f the

1940s

and 1950swere ifewith xhortations

o

meet he

in-

escapable

emand

..

to serve he

national

efense

nd

strengthen

he freeworld"

Massachusetts

nstitutef

Technology

954,

10).

Compton's ounterpart

t Har-

vard,

ames

onant,

was

similarly

onvinced

bout

he

importance

f

cience.He formed Committee

n the

Physical

ciences t Harvard

uring

he

war,

nd

oined

Compton

n Vannevar

ush'sNationalDefense

Re-

search ommittee.hese

commitmentsontinued

fter

the War ended. n a 1947address, onantoutlined

"special

sense

n

which cience

s called

upon

to

help

out

with national

problems

here

in

this

country"

Conant

1948,

77).

More

generally,

he Second WorldWar ent

egitimacy

in

the United States

to the

coupling

of scientific

nd

social scientific

nowledge

o national nterest

xpressed

militarily, relationship

hat extended into the Cold

War. The

resulting military-industrial-academic

om-

plex,"

as SenatorWilliam

Fulbright

abeled t

(Kay

2000,

10-11;

see also Leslie

1993),

administered

y

scientific



4/21

Between

egions:

cience,Militarism,

nd American

eography

rom

World

War

o Cold War 809

managers

uch

s

Conant,

ompton,

nd

Bush,

n turn

produced

new formf science nd social

cience.

By

drawing

n

science

tudies,

we first ketch he

emer-

gence

and elements f that

complex;

nd

second,

we

identify

ts

pecific

ubstantiveharacteristics.

The WorldWar

I

Regime

ndTechnoscience

The

sociologist

f

cience,

ndrew

ickering

1995a,

5),

following

ichel

Foucault's

ocabulary

or

marking

off

brupt

iscontinuous

pochs, pplies

he erm World

War

I

regime"

o understand

he

form

cience

nd ocial

science

ook

during

he

Second WorldWar and

Cold

War.

t

wasa

regime

marked

ydisciplinary

ndmaterial

transgression,

y

what

Pickering

alls

"cyborg

istory."

Lubricated

y

wartime

odies uch s the

National

De-

fenseResearch ommittee

nd

later

he Office

f Sci-

entific esearch ndDevelopmentR&D), thehitherto

relatively

istinct

ntities f the

military

nd science

were

uring

he

econd

World

War

orcedo

engage

ne

another,

esulting

n

what

Pickering

alls

"mangling."2

Mangling

s

the

dynamic,

utual

ransformation

f en-

tities

s

they

nteract.

n

this

case,

science

and

the

military

ere

mangled.

heir

very

practices hanged

substantially

s

they

worked

ogether,

ecame

quite

different,

nd

never eturnedo

their

espective

riginal

forms.

ickering

1995b,

39)

maintainshat

The

ntersection

f

ciencend he

military

n

World

ar

I

can

thus e understoods a

macromangling

hat ncom-

passed oth n nner ransformationf hese womacro-

actorsnd n

outer ransformation

n

their

elationship

o

one nother.he

way

f

oing

cience

hanged

rom

mall

to

big

cience;

he

military

hifted

ts

tactics

nd

basic

disciplines;

othnstitutionsere

opologically

ransformed

in

reciprocal

ransformationf

hape.

.

and ll

of

hese

transformationsere

nteractively

tabilizednrelationo

transformations

n

machinic

ulture

symbolizedy

devel-

opments

n

radar

echnology).

The

machinic eference

s

important. ickering

s

keen to

emphasize

hat

mangling

s not restrictedo

macro-actors,ut occurs t everyevel, nvolvingu-

mans and

nonhumans,

ncluding

machines uch as radar

and,

crucial to

geographical

esearch

as

we shall

see),

the

computer.

Mangling

for

Pickering

rovides

means

for

under-

standing

he

changing

orm f

science

and

social science

during

he War.

n

orderto meet

military

urposes,

he

argues,

both

became

mission-focused,

eam-based and

interdisciplinary,ierarchically rganized,

tate-funded,

machine-oriented, nd,

owing

to reduced interest n

pure

theory

nd more interest

n

application,

model-

based. Of

course,

he

military

tselfwas also

altered,

adapting

ts

tactics nd

strategies

o new

technologies

and

devices,

s

well as

to novel

techniques,

orms

f

information,

nd

ogistical

odels.

s

Pickering

1995a,

18)

notes:"Whathad been

largelyeparate

nd au-

tonomousnstitutionseforeWorldWar I-science and

the

military-had

een

profoundly

ransformednd

locked

together

s a

complex,

ocial, material,

nd

conceptual

yborg

ntity y

theend of t."

Donna

Haraway

s

also

keen ouse

the erm

yborg,

nd

for

he ame

eason

s

Pickering.

t connotes

luidity,

nd

transgression;yborg

ntities

re

not

pure

nd

ingular,

ut

are

frequently

lurred,

ultiple,

nd

changing,

ssembled

from

iversity.

cience

s one

such

case. t

appears ure

and

solitary,ermetically

ealed,

ut t is

heterogeneous

and

open,

with

ts

ntellectual

nd

material oundaries

continuallyhifting,

s

they

id

during

heSecondWorld

War. or his eason arawayrefershe ompound ord

technoscience.t

"designate[s]

ense

nodes fhuman

nd

nonhumanctors hat re

brought

nto lliance

y

the

material,

ocial,

nd semiotic

echnologies

and]

through

whichwhatwill ount s

nature

nd

as matters f fact

get

constituted"

Haraway

997,

50).

Where

Haraway

iffersrom

ickering

s

in

her

em-

phasis

n

power. ickering

s content o letthe

mangle

roll

n,

viewing

hat

s

fed n and what

merges

t the

other nd as

nothing

ut

the

result f

contingency.

n

contrast,

araway

dentifies

arger

orces t

work:

the

world-building

lliances

fhumans nd non-humans

n

technosciencehape subjects nd objects, ubjectivity

and

objectivity,

ction

nd

passion,

nside nd

outside,

n

ways

hat

nfeeble

ther

ways

f

peaking

bout cience

and

technology.

n

short,

echnoscience

s

about

worldly,

materialized,

ignifying

nd

significant

ower"

Haraway

1997,

51).

To understand

urther

hat

power,

he draws

on LouisAlthusser's

1969)

notion

f

"interpellation,"

whichhe

employed

o

understandhow

deology

on-

stitutests

ubjects

ut

of concretendividuals

y

hail-

ing'

hem"

Haraway

997,

9-50).'

For

Haraway

1997,

51)

technosciencelso

nterpellates

nd

hails,

nd not

only

humans

ut also

nonhumans,

nlisting

hem nto

new"world-buildinglliances." he SecondWorldWar

and even more so the Cold War were

shaped

by

en-

semblesof

technoscience hat

hailed

people

and

things,

includinggeographers, ncorporating

hem into new

world-building

lliances,

and

resulting

n

a

changed

conception

of

region.

The

Character

f the

World

War I

Regime

Separate

from hese theoretical

writings

s a

comple-

mentary

iterature

describing

he

general

substantive



5/21

810

Barnes nd

Farish

characteristicsf heWorldWar I

regime.

eliefn

the

instrumental

ower

f cience n

achieving

ational e-

curity

nterestss

the first

haracteristic,

oundmost

starkly

n

the

convictionhat

cience,

nd

its embodi-

ment

n

technology,

on he

econdWorldWar

a

claim

mostobviouslyvidenced ytheManhattan roject).

Such

a belief

was

reaffirmednd

further

nstitutionally

embeddedn

the

early

old War era.Vannevar

ush's

1945

report

o the

President,

cience:

he Endless

ron-

tier,

etthe

tage,

oking

he

cquisition

f

knowledge

o

American

lobal

power.

With

Europe

till

hattered

y

war,

Bush

argued

heUnited tates

had become

not

just

thecenter

utthe

anctuary

f cience"

Manzione

2000,

32).

Later,

ther

old War

cientific

anagers

ike

Conant

and

Compton

uggested

hat t was

less that

America

had

become cientifichan that

ciencehad

becomeAmerican

nd was

consequentlyndistinguish-

able fromnationalgeopolitical trategy.onant, a

chemist

y

raining

his

research ason

poisonous as),

directly

ransferred

ilitaryanguage

nto hedomain

f

science.His

Harvard

Nat Sci

4"

course,

reated

n

1947,

sought

o instruct

tudents

n

scientifictactics

and

trategy."

e

believed hat he

futuref

cience,

nd

indeed,

modernity,

as

synchronous

ith

he future f

theUnited

tates,

nd that

f

correctly

onducted ci-

ence

woulddefend

gainst

looming

ark

Age

(Fuller

2000,

150-78;

see also

Conant

1947,

hap.

4).

Second,

t

was

widely

elieved hat he ocial ciences

would e

efficacious

nly

o far

s

they

oo

were cien-

tific. anielBell 1982,13) asks nhis urveyfpostwar

social

cience:

If

he

widespread

obilization

f

cience,

and the

concentrationf some

specific bjects,

ould

produce

cientific

nd technical

reakthroughs,hy

could

not a similar

mobilization

..

produce

imilar e-

sults

n

the

ocial

ciences?

..

The social ciences

were

[to]

becom[e]

hard,'

ike the

natural ciences."

This

intellectual

nterest

quared

with nd was

reinforced

y

the

potential

ontribution

f the social

sciences o a

national

nterest. he

OSS's Research nd

Analysis

(R&A)

Branch as

stablished

n

1941

precisely

o

apply

social

scientific

nowledge

nd

methods o

America's

strategiceeds na globalwar. espite ncludingmong

its ranks ritical

ociologists

ike the

German

6migrd

nd

Frankfurt

chool

memberHerbert

Marcuse,

R&A ac-

tively

efined

tself n terms f

scientific

bjectivity

nd

the realization

of a

pure

and

presuppositionlessogic

(Katz 1989).

Best

representedby

the

work of OSS

economists,who,

for

xample,developed

mathematical

optimization

modelsof ir

bombardment o calculate the

maximaldestruction

or the least

cost,

objectivity

nd

rigor

were

expected

from

veryone

nd,

f

not

delivered,

then

authoritatively

nforced.

The

same mindsetwas

deliberately

arried

orward

into the Cold

War

period.Reflecting

n the

develop-

ment f

the human ciencesn the

period

940-1960,

Carl Schorske otes

"passage

.. from

ange

o

rigor,

fromoose

engagement

ith multifaceted

eality

is-

toricallyerceived o the creation f sharp nalytical

tools hat ould

promiseertainty

here

escription

nd

speculative

xplication

ad

prevailed

efore"

Schorske

1997,

295).

Although

most obvious n

the

massive

postwar

mathematization

feconomicss both

heoret-

ical

modeling

nd statisticalconometric

valuation,

he

move

to

analytical igor

as also found

n fields s

di-

verse s

philosophy,olitical

cience,

ociology,

nd,

s

we shall

rgue,

uman

eography.

hisbroader

pproach

was

signaled y

the formationn 1952

of the

Social

Science Research

Council's

Committee n the

Math-

ematical

raining

fSocial Scientists.cientistsuch

s

the ngineerndphysicistloyd erkner1960,1377),

member

fnumerous

old War

projects,

emanded

s

late as 1960that ocial cience

find

lementary,

un-

damental,

nd

independent

oncepts

r

parameters,

whose

oefficientsan be determined

umerically,

nd

which ombined

n suitablemathematical

ormulations

could

predict nalytically

omething

bout

he

ultimate

capacities

f he

ndividual."

Third,

he nstitutional

iteswhere cience nd

social

science

were arried ut nsured

multidisciplinarity.

he

Manhattan

roject,

n

place

at

thirty

istinct merican

sites,

most

notably

he

trinity

f

laboratoriest

Los

Alamos,Hanford,ndOak Ridge, ermittedts eaders,

General

eslieGroves nd Professor

obert

ppenhe-

imer,

o recruithebest

ndthe

brightest

romcross

he

spectrum

f henatural

ciences,

ncluding any

ecent

arrivals

rom

urope.

imilarly,

eneral

William

ono-

van

and Professor illiam

anger

conscript[ed]

he

leading

hinkers

n

a dozen

cholarly

isciplines

nto he

Office f

Strategic

ervices"

Katz

1989,

xi).

Bothex-

amples

eflect novelmodel f

research-oftenubbed

"big

science"-in

which enormous

ommitments

f

money

nd

resources llowed

diverse

ange

f

per-

sonnel nd

expertise,long

with

eterogeneous

ateri-

als,towork n a common roblem, hethertwasthe

construction f an

atomic

weapon

or the

provision

f

militaryntelligence

see

Galisonand

Hevly

1992).

This model

became the

template

or

arrying

utre-

search after

the war. Government

and,

increasingly,

privatefunding rought

ogether arge

teams of

varied

researchers o

work

on

specificproblems

most

directly

connected to

national

security

nd

military

nterests.

Perhaps

the

best

example

is the RAND

Corporation,

based in

Santa

Monica,

California.When

founded n

December

1945

within he

Douglas

Aircraft

ompany,



6/21

Between

egions:

cience,Militarism,

nd American

eography

rom

WorldWar o Cold War

811

RAND

reported

o the

Army

ir

Force.

y

1948,

t

was

a

separate

onprofit

rganization,

till ied

losely

o

the

newly

reatedUnited tates

Air

Force,

oncerned ith

providingnterdisciplinary

nformationnd

knowledge

to the

military

n

a climate f he

gathering

old War

J.

A. Smith 991;Hounshell 997;Collins 002).RAND

broughtogether

who'swho f

Americancientistsnd

social cientistso work n a

variety

f

problemsurning

on the "science of warfare"

Hounshell

1997,

244).

Those

employed

y

RAND

included the scientific

polymath

ohn

on

Neumann,

he

economists enneth

Arrow,

nd

Tjalling oopmans

both

aterwinnersf he

Nobel

Prize),

he

mathematicianith hebeautiful ind

John

Nash,

and

(at

the

Systems

evelopment orpor-

ation,

RAND

spin-off)

aldo

Tobler,

ho

worked n a

project

o

develop computer-basedarlywarningys-

temfornuclear ttack

SAGE).

It was

a result

f that

experience,ndclasses t theUniversityfWashington

withWilliam

Garrison

whose

contributionsre de-

scribed n moredetail n a later

ecton),

hat Tobler

wrote Automationnd

Cartography,"key

text for

analytical artography

nd the

development

f

geo-

graphic

nformation

ystems

GIS;

Tobler

959;

see also

Clarke nd Cloud

2000).

The

wider

oint

s

that cience

and social science were

carried ut at such

sites as

teamwork,

ased on

generous unding

ines,

directed

instrumentally

t a

particularroblem y

drawing

n a

range

f

disciplinaryroficiencies.

Finally, unding

as critical o the

types

f research

assemblageshatformed.nitiallyrovidedlmost x-

clusivelyy

heU.S.

military,

t ater

widened o nclude

other

overnmentgencies

nd

philanthropies,

nd the

latterwere

speciallymportant

or he

social ciences.

During

he

1950s,

0

percent

fFederalU.S. R&D ex-

penditure

ame fromhe

Department

f Defense nd

accounted

or

wo-thirds

f

all

national

R&D

spent

n

aerospace

ndelectronics

uring

he

period

Leslie 993,

2).

Initially,

he

ocial

cienceswere lso

overwhelmingly

funded

y

the

state,

with he OfficefNaval Research

(ONR)

particularlymportant

n

the

arly

ostwar

ears

(in

1949

the

ONR funded

0

percent

f the

pure

nd

academic esearchntheUnited tates;Mirowski002,

200).

Later,

he Ford and

Rockefeller oundationswere

increasingly

ctive. Aftermuch

wrangling,

he National

Science Foundation et

up

a subdivision n

1955 called

"sociophysical

ciences"that ncludedhuman

geography.

Finally,

n

1958 an Office f Social Sciences was

estab-

lished that admitted

he

remaining

ocial

sciences.4

A central

uestion

n the

history

f Cold War science

is

the effectof

military

nd more

generally

outside

funding

n

shaping

he

knowledge roducedby

research.

The

classic

study

s

by

Forman

1989),

who concluded

that he mmensemount f

military oney

rovided

o

physicists

ltered their

previous

research

rajectory,

changing

he

knowledgehey

reated nd the

problems

they

tudied. ince

Forman's

ork,

imilar

onclusions

have

been

reached

with

espect

o other

ciences,

n-

cludingmeteorology,ceanography,nd geology,ll

targeted y

the R&D Board fthe

Department

f De-

fense

during

he

early

Cold

War

(Cloud

2003;

Den-

nis

2003;

Doel

2003;

Oreskes

003).

The

Department

of

Defensewas also

behindmuch

ftheresearch

n

re-

mote

ensing

nd

development

fGIS

at

places

uch s

Ohio

State

University

Cloud 2000).

John

loud

2001,

240)

speaks

f

that

process

fresearch s a "Shuttered

Box"

allowing

successful

assage

of

people, money,

ideas nd

technologies

nddataback nd forthetween

[classified

nd

nonclassified]

omains,

utwithoutver

providing

irect

ight

r communication

etween

he

realms. he Shutteredox thereforereserveshese-

curity

f the classified ealm.At the same time t

transforms

r

disguises

he

identities

f

the elements

passing

hrough

t."Cloudand

other cholarsoncerned

with he

genealogy

f

the

geographic

nformation

ci-

ences

GISciences)

have

done

muchto

pry pen

that

box.

Fewerhistoricaltudies f the social sciences xist

(although

Mirowski002

examines

conomics nd So-

lovey

2001

provides

n

example

of where

proposed

military

undingpectacularly

ailed nd undid he

an-

ticipated

esearch).

ut

during

he

early

old War

era,

the argerulture fmilitarismnfluenced hat ounted

as

appropriate

ocial scienceresearch. wo Social Sci-

ence Research

Council

representatives,

or

nstance,

argued

n

a 1950 booklet n research or he federal

services hat

lthough

"nation,

community,family,

cannot

eadily

e

put

n a

test

ube,"

his id not

mean

that he earch or uniformitiesfbehavior" hould e

discarded. umanswere till

subject

o

physical

aws"

(Social

ScienceResearch ouncil

1950, 12, 22,

11).

The

knowledge

reatedout of the

Second

World

War's estruction

ndthe

Cold War's

roxy

onflicts

nd

modernization

rojects

was not

innocent,

ut was

shapedwithin peculiarnstitutionalermutation-the

military-industrial-academic

omplex-that

directly

r

indirectly

romoted

an American

geopolitical agenda.

The

agenda

was realized

through

he

politicization

f

science and its

technological

products,

he use of sci-

entific

methods,

ncluding nalytical ogic

and

quanti-

tative

techniques,

within the social

sciences,

the

development

of a

"big

science" model of inter-

disciplinarity

arried ut at

specific eographical

ites to

achieve definite

nds,

and the

provision

of

very arge

sums of

moneyprimarily

rom

militarygencies

to

gen-



7/21

812

Barnes

nd Farish

erate

new,

relevant

nowledge.

n

Pickering's

erms,

there

was much

mangling

s the

military,

ciences,

nd

the

academy,

long

with

pieces

of

technology,

ech-

niques,

and

vocabularies,

ame

together

n hitherto

novel

ombinations

nd,

n

that

ery mergentrocess,

produced etfurtheroveltyPickering995a).More-

over,

hose ombinations

eredifficulto

resist,

epre-

senting normouslyowerful

ctors nd vastresources.

When it

hailed,

s

Haraway uggests,

ne

usually

is-

tened,

nd

was

interpellated.

hat was

the

case with

human

geography.

e

argue

that

n

the

process

ts

conception

f

science nd associated

otions f the re-

gion

were ltered nd

replaced

y

uite

different

iew.

We

begin

with n

older

core idea

and,

in

particular,

statements ade bout t

by

Richard artshorne.

Richard

Hartshorne,

cience,

and

Regional

Geography

1938 was no time

or n American

eographer

o be

examininguropean

oundariesith

otebooks,

aps

nd

camera.

-(James

1972,

18)

Hartshornealledhis work he

Nature

f

Geography

(1939),

using

hedefiniterticlend the

ingular

ormf

thenouns.Not

everyonegreed

with

he

tatement,

nd

some iolentlyisagreed,everthelessany houghthe

book

represented

crossing

f

the Rubicon. outed s

the

most

sophisticated eographicalmethodological

statement

et

made

in

English,

he text

meticulously

explicated,

igorouslyustified,

nd

genealogically

ixed

the

discipline

nterms f tsrelationoscience nd re-

gion

ikenonebefore.

Initiated

n

December

937

after

n invitationrom

Derwent

Whittlesey,

heeditor fthe

Annals

f

heAs-

sociation

f

American

eographers,

o write

"statement

...

it

can be brief"

quoted

y

Hartshorne

979,

3)

on

John

Leighly's

1937)

earlier

aper published

n

that

journal,Hartshorne'smanuscriptuickly ot out of

hand.

By April

1938,

it was 61

manuscript pages

(Hartshorne

1979,

70).

In

July

1938,

on the eve of

Hartshorne's academic leave to Vienna where he

planned

to

studyboundary

ssues

in

the mid-Danube

region,

twas

194

pages

(71).

The

Anschluss,however,

put

a

stop

to

to

plans

for

ieldwork,

nd

Hartshorne id

what

many

academics would do in such circumstances:

he went to the

library. onsequently,

when the

manu-

script

was

finally ompleted

n

April

1939

in

Meilen,

Switzerland,

where he had

gone

for

safetyfearing

Germanwarwith

Poland,

twasmore han600

pages

(73).

Hartshorneonceived

f

geography

s a

science,

l-

though

twasdifferentrom hat

he

variously

alled he

"exact

ciences,"

natural

ciences,"

r

"systematic

ci-

ences" Hartshorne939,115,144).Geographyasa

science

n

the sense

hat

t

provided

organized,bjec-

tive

knowledge"

130)

and ts

remit as all facts f

he

earth's

urface"

372).

But

clearly

hose acts eeded o

be

organized.

orHartshornehis

rganization

as to

be

realized

horologically:geography

ill

etermine

hich

factst will

tilize,

ot

according

o their

ubstance,

ut

according

o... their elationo

the real ifferentiation

of theworld"

373).

It is here hat

egion

was so

important.

The facts f

the earth's urface"would be ordered

egionally.

s

Hartshorne

rote,

the

ultimate

urpose

f

geography,

thestudy farealdifferentiationfthe world chorol-

ogy],

s

most

learly

xpressed

n

regional eography"

(Hartshorne,

939,

468).5

Hartshorne

1939, 275)

was

well ware hat

regions

were

constructs,

entities

nly

n

our

thoughts,

ven

though they]

..

provide

ome ort f

ntelligent

asis

for

rganizing

ur

knowledge

f

eality."

ut his

idnot

make

regional eography

utile.Whatever he

precise

boundariesf

regions,

t was still

lways ossible

o de-

termine ow

"particular

lements

nd

complexes

f

elements ithin

egions

re

related

o those

n

others"

(282)

and n

doing

o

fulfill

he mandate f

horology.

Specifically,orHartshornehe building locksof

regions,

owever

hey

were

ventually

elineated,

ere

complex

ombinationsf hardfacts nd

specific

ausal

relations.

oth

the facts nd relations

ere

apable

f

objective

isclosure

Entrikin 981).

These

objective

combinationshathe

sometimesalled"element om-

plexes"

onsistedfthe facts f

place

and their nter-

relationships.

urthermore,

heir

very

combinatorial

character

roduced

niqueness-that

s,

complexes

ot

found

nywhere

lse. Robert

ack

(1974, 441)

notes

that

the

pecific

egion

s described

y

Hartshorne

s...

synthesized

romts

parts

nd their

nterrelationships;

[forhat eason]t cannot e studiedntirelyntermsf

generic

oncepts.

t must lso be

'regarded

s

unique

in

[its]

einmalige

ombination f nterrelated

henomena."'

That

uniqueness

meant

that

traditional cientific

explanation

based on

general

aws did not

apply.

The

type

of

explanation

found in the

exact, natural,

and

systematic

ciences rested n

asserting eneral generic)

relationships

etween

homogenous

lasses of

phenome-

na: if lass of

phenomena

A,

then class of

phenomena

B.

But under Hartshorne's

onception,

the

synthesis

f

facts and

empirical

elations

onstituting region

was



8/21

Between

egions:

cience,

Militarism,

nd American

eography

romWorldWar o Cold War 813

never

he same

anywhere

lse

and,

ndeed,

he

region

itself asnota "real"

phenomenon.

cientific

xplan-

ation

n

which nstances fbroader lasses f

phenom-

ena were

elated

y

awlike

tatementad no

purchase.

Consequently,

s Hartshorne

1939)

notes,

We

arrive,

therefore,t a conclusionimilaro thatwhichKroeber

has

stated or

history:

the

uniqueness

f all historical

phenomena.

..

No

lawsor near aws re discovered.'

The

same conclusion

pplies

o

the

particular

ombin-

ation

of

phenomena

t a

particular lace"

(446).

We

cannot,

therefore,

xplain,

r

predict,

r

knowingly

intervene ut

only

describe:

Regional

eography,

e

conclude,

s

literally

hat

ts

title

xpresses:

..

It is

essentially

descriptive

cience oncerned ith hede-

scription

nd

nterpretation

f

unique

ases .

."

(449).

A

second eaturefHartshorne's

rgument

lso bore

on whatwas to

transpire

ater,

ts

self-conscious

ntel-

lectual solationism. artshorneid not engageother

emerging

ocial ciences.

he

reasonwas found

n

The

Nature's

ubtitle:

A critical

urveyf

urrent

hought

n

he

light f

the

past."

Hartshorne's

roject

was

to

define

geography's

ssential ature n the basisof a historical

review f the

discipline's

rigins, rimarily

erman.

Works hat onformed

o

thathistorical

evelopment-

that

s,

they

dopted

Hartshorne's

horologicaloncep-

tionofthe

region-were eographical,

nd

works

hat

did

not

were

"deviations" nd were not

geography,

whatever

heir

uthors

might ay

(Hartshorne939,

chap.

3).

Several onsequencesollowed.irst, egional eog-

raphy

ecessarily

ecame nsular.

he

only

ources

f ts

definition ere

the

practices

f

previous eographers.

Potentialontributions

y

ther

isciplinesncluding

he

socialscienceswere

put

to one side.

They

were not

relevant,

xternalo The nature

f

geographyccording

to

its

historical

evelopment"

Hartshorne

939,

chap.

2).

Second,

egional

eography

as

static

ecause

on-

cepts

f

region

aken

rom

arlier

eographers

id not

change.

Hartshorne's

pholding

f hese

rozen

recepts

of

egional

tudy

ept

he

discipline

n

a

cryological

tate.

Finally,

egional

eography

ecessarily

ecame

rotective

of ts boundaries.Without igilance,deviationsrom

the courseof

historical

evelopment"

Hartshorne 939,

chap.

3)

lurked

ust

around

the

corner,

ith

mplications

of contamination nd defect. But with

vigilance,

the

pure

character f

regional eography

as sustained.

The

upshot,

as Neil

Smith

(1989, 92)

puts

it,

was that

Hartshorne's

Nature

"committed

geography

o

a mu-

seum-like xistence. The museum

perimeter

was

jeal-

ously

fenced

by

a

ring

of

conceptual

distinctions hat

keptgeographers

n and

effectivelyiscouraged

wouldbe

intruders."

This

museum

onception

f

region,

s if t

were

pre-

served

nder

lass,

nd

the

view

hat

egions

ouldnot

be

explained

y

he

methodology

f

natural cience

were

both

ubject

o

increasing

ressures

nd

strains,

nd

al-

most rom

he

moment hatHartshorneirstrticulated

them. hosepressuresndstrains id notoriginateo

much

rom

nternal

riticism,

lthough

here

was

ome

f

that

Carl

Sauer's rritable

esponse

n

the form f

a

December

940

Presidential

ddress

o

the

Association

ofAmerican

eographers

AAG)

wasthemost mme-

diate;

auer

1941),6

ut

from

eemingly

xternal

vents

that

produced

different

onception

f cientific

rac-

tice.Before

he

Nature

ppeared

n

print,

urope

wasat

war.

And

ust

over wo

years

ater,

artshorne

imself,

along

with

large

number

f

otherAmerican

eogra-

phers, egan erving

he

tate,

s the

United tates tself

entered

nto

global

onflictnd ater xtended

hrough

othermeans nd other oesnto heterrainftheCold

War.

American

eopolitical

maneuvering

nd

strategy

brought

he

greatest

ressures

nd strains

o bear

on

geographical

hought

nd

practice,xposing

he

discip-

line to

a

very

different

onception

f

science

and

in

doing

o

shattering

he old

idea

of the

region

nd cre-

ating omethinguite

different.

Research and

Analysis

t the

OSS

...

half

ops-and-robbers,

alf

aculty eeting.

-(Johnson

964,

)

In

September

941,

Richard artshorne as alled o

Washington,

.C.,

to

form

geography

ranchwithin

the

two-month-oldffice

fthe Co-ordinatorf

nfor-

mation

OCI).

In

June

942

the name

was

changed

o

Office f

trategic

ervices

Martin

994,

88),

and this

was the

forerunner

f

the

CIA. That Office

eported

directly

o thePresidentnd

the

Joint

hiefs f

taff.

ts

founding

harter as "to

collect nd

analyze

ll

infor-

mation nddatawhich

may

ear

upon

national

ecurity"

(quoted

n

Troy

1981,

423).'

The

subsequentmport-

ance of the OSS was immense. ccordingo Andrew

Kirby

1994, 306),

it "created

many

f theblue

prints

or

post-war

US economic and

military egemony...

[as

well

as]

presiding

ver the

emergence

f

essentially

ew

conceptions

f academic abor."There were also

smaller,

more ocalized

effects,

ne of

whichwas

the

beginning

f

a new

conception

of

region,propelling

cademic

geog-

raphy long

a new intellectual

rc.

Headed

by

a former

Wall

Street

Lawyer,

decorated

World War I

soldier,

nd friend f Winston

Churchill,

General William

J.

Donovan,

the

operations

f the OSS



9/21

814

Barnes

nd

Farish

at

23rd

treet

nd

East

n

Washington,

.C.,

expanded

dramatically

nce

theUnited

tates

ntered

hewar

n

December

941.

Its

staff

rew

rom

,000

n

1942

to

more han

,000

n

1945.

TheOSS was

the

ingle

most

important

artimenstitution

mploying

merican

e-

ographers,29 at itsheightKirby 994,306; R6ssler

1996;

Harris

997;

Barnes

006).

Its

functions

aried

from

arrying

ut

covert

operations

o

psychological

warfare

o

(almost)

onventional

cademic

tudy.

he

latter

ccurred nder

he

umbrella

fthe R&A

branch

headed

by

the

Harvard

istorian

illiam .

Langer.

R&A

was

the

key

ite within

SS,

its

"heart

nd

soul"

Winks 987,

114),

responsible

or

ollecting

nd

analyzing

ata and

nformationn

every

heater f

the

conflict. inks

1987,

63)

notes

hat R&A

controlled

the

most

owerful

eapon

n

theOSS arsenal:

he

hree-

by-five

ndex ard."

Described s

the

"Chairborne

iv-

ision" Katz1989,xii),R&A was thebranch nwhich

Hartshorne

eld

a

key

administrative

osition

rom

November

942:

Chair

f the

Projects

ommittee

hat

prioritized,

versaw,

nd

vetted

ndividual

ssignments

carried

ut

by

R&A

staff.

That

staffwas

extraordinary.

t

consisted f three

main

groups:

midcareer

merican

rofessors

ncluding

Langer

nd

Hartshorne,

ypically

onservative,

ut

vig-

orously

nti-fascist;

oung

cholars,

ften

raduate

tu-

dents,

who

included

Walter

Rostow,

arl

Schorske,

Charles

Kindelberger,

rthur

chlesinger r.,

nd

even

the

Marxist aul

Sweezy,

ho

collectively

ould

ater

reshape hepostwarumanitiesnd social ciences;nd

European efugee

migres

ncluding

erbert

Marcuse,

Franz

Neuman,

nd

Paul

Baran,

heoretical,

eft-wing,

and

prodigiously

rudite

Katz

1987;

Sdllner

1990).

Among

he

geographers

ere

hree

uture

residentsf

the

AAG:

Hartshorne,

reston

James,

nd

Edward

Ackerman.

ther

eographers

ncluded

dward

llman,

Chauncy

Harris,

Kirk

Stone,

and

Arthur

Robinson,

directorf

the

Map

Division,

hich

oasted he

argest

single

contingent

f

geographers,

hirty-eight

Harris

1997:

246;

on

the

Map

division,

ee

Wilson

1949;

Robinson

1979).8

What

they

enerated

as a

massive

amount f extualmaterialnd nformation.ith total

staff f

always

essthan

a

thousand,

nd a third

f

those

overseas,

R&A

produced

by

war's

end more

than

3,000

research

tudies,

00

reports,

nd

3,000

original

maps

B.

E

Smith

1983,

371).

In

addition,

through

Wilmarth

Lewis's

Herculean

efforts t the

Central

Information

Division,

the

OSS could

draw

upon

morethan

a

million

3

x

5 file

ards,

based

on

original

nformation

ources,

thatwere

cross-indexed

nd

included

pictorial

material

(Winks

1987,

110).

More

generally, particular

orm

f

knowledge

was

fashioned

nd used to

further

merican

military

nd

political

nterests.

o nation

admade

uch

systematic

seof he

ocial ciencesn

the

gathering

nd

interpretation

f

military

nd

strategic

ntelligence

or

day-to-day

artime

perations.

ationalnterests

ould

be

pursued,

s Donovan

aid,

through

good

old

fash-

ioned ntellectualweat" quotedbyFord1970,148).

It

might

ave

been

good

ld-fashioned

weat,

ut

he

intellectual

ractices

roduced

werebrandnew

or,

t

least,

brandnew

to

geography.

he

first

ractice

was

imposed

ooperation

ith ther

isciplines,

ormalized

n

January

943 when

the

discipline-based

rid

f

organ-

ization

t R&A was abandoned.

nstead,

the

primary

lines

f

research

ork

n the Branch

were]

efined

y

theater reas."9

Within

ach,

nterdisciplinary

ollabor-

ationwas

expected

long

he threemain xes

of

R&A

research:economic

apabilities,"

topographical

ntel-

ligence,"

nd

"political,

ociological,

nd

psychological

characteristics."10s Kirk Stone (1979, 91) recalls,

"Commonly

team

approach

was

used ..

[and]

im-

provised

or ach

assignment.

eographerssually

ound

themselves

orking ight

nd

day

with

economists,

historians

r

political

cientists,

r when

ent

lsewhere

in

Washington

r the

country

o

search or

data,

the

contactswere

professional

ilitary

eople,biologists,

geologists,

r

climatologists."

Interdisciplinary

elations

ithin

nd across he

re-

gional

Divisions

were not

always

harmonious.

he

geographer

reston

ames

quoted

n

R6ssler

996,

78)

wrote

o the economist

handler

Morse,

Head

of

the

R&A outpostnLondon,nAugust 944:

Although

here

s

complete

nderstanding

t the

higher

"echelons"

God

bless

em)

between

eographers,

cono-

mistsnd

ther

reeds,

e till ave

certain

mount

f

friction

t he o-called

orking

evel.

....

Thereal

roblem

is this: an

wo

roups

f

people

howork

romuch

n-

tirely

ifferent

ngles

nd

or uch

ppositebjectives

ver

bemade o ee hat

ach

ives

nly

partialicture,

nd

or

the

ompleteicture

oth

re

necessary?

anthe

cono-

mist ver emade

o

top peaking

f he

athering

f

acts

and

the

plotting

f

details

n

maps

s a

lowerrder

f

thought

han hat

equired

or he

building

f

formulae?

And

canthe

geographers

ver

realize

hat nless

hey

e-

vise

more ccurate

nd

objective

rocedureshey

an

not

hope

to achieve

heresults

hey

wish.

In the

end,

though,

here was no

choice;

it was

an

order.

n

Pickering's

erms,

his

forced

nterdisciplinarity

withinthe social

sciences,

and the

equally

forced

on-

nection

to the

military,

as a form f

mangling,

angling,

and

pressing

ogether ractices

hat

hitherto ad

been

distinct nd

separate.



10/21

Between

egions:

cience,

Militarism,

nd American

eography

rom

WorldWar o

Cold

War

815

Certainly

he

projects

n which

geographers

ere

engaged

ecame

ncreasingly

angled,

uch s the

Joint

Army-Navyntelligence

tudies

JANIS),

he mandate

ofwhichwas tomake vailable

n one

publication

.. all

the

necessary

etailed nformation

pon

which

may

be

based warplan .. in a given rea.""11he result as a

set of

anonymous

ndconfidentialolumes

boutvari-

ous

strategicegions,

ach

packed

with

hotographs

nd

comprehensive

etailon

resources,

errain,

nfrastruc-

ture,

nd other

eographic

eatures.1z

epresenting

oth

an

unprecedented

ilitarynterdepartmental

nd

aca-

demic

nterdisciplinaryooperation,hirty-four

ANIS

studies ere

roduced

etween

pril

943

nd

July

947

and formed

he

template

or

heCIA's National

ntelli-

gence

Surveys

nitiated

ust

months

fter

he

Agency

opened

n

September

947.13

Kirk

tone was the first SS

representative

n the

Jointntelligencetudies ublishingoardresponsible

for

ublishing

ANIS

reports.

ut he was

frustrated

y

the

ack

of

ompetence

fBoard

members,

alling

hem

"dead-heads,"

nd

writing

o Hartshorne

nly

a few

weeks

after

he was

appointed, Perhaps

his

Board

should e dissolved

..

before

..

it

unduly

astes

money

that

ould

go

to the

production

f

bullets

ather han

second-rate

ntelligence."14

dwardUllman

followed

Stone

as

the

OSS

Board

representative

nd

ultimately

became ts director. is

problem

was less withBoard

membership

han

withhow

mangling

as

to

be under-

taken. llman

hought

t

had

best e done

by evamping

thenotion fregion.n a December 944 memoon

"topographicalntelligence"

e

complained

hat too

many

f

the

pastJANIS

eports

ere

verly

ocused

n

regional escription:

Specialized

nowledge

f

subject

s

more

mportant

han

knowledge

f n rea. When heResearchnd

Analysis

BranchfOSS was irst

rganized,

twas et

up

primarily

on

regional

asis

..

[but]

most f he

roduct

as

oorly

organized,

nbalancednd f

reliminary

alue. ater hat

branch as

eorganized

nd

ome

unctionalections

ere

set

up

.. the esult as

better,

ore seful

roduct.15

This suggestshatUllman, rainedn theregional

geographical

tradition

at

Chicago

and

Harvard,

was

beginning

o

think f

region

n

non-Hartshornian

erms,

emphasizing

functional"

generic)

relations

ather han

the

strictlyhorological

pproach.

His comments eflect

the second feature f ntellectual

ractices

t

R&A,

the

emphasis

n scientific tandards nd forms f

nquiry.

Hartshorne

was

never

opposed

to scientific tandards

and

very

muchbelieved

n

the

possibility

f

the

objective

description

f facts and

empirical

relations.

Although

regions

were

constructs,

hey

were not

fuzzy,ubjective

entities. herewas

always

"there"

here

hat

ouldbe

represented

n

hard-boiled,

actual

terms.

n

fact,

Hartshorne as chosen s the

principal

nforcerf

ob-

jectivity

t

R&A,

whennNovember

942

he

was

made

chair

f he

Projects

ommittee,16

artly

naugurated

o

safeguardcientifictandards f language, ruth,nd

logic

n

the

fledging

rganization.

n a

Guidehe

laidout

those tandards:

It sof

he tmost

mportance

..

[to]

trive

or

he

highest

degree

f

bjectivity.

e should

ultivate

hat

might

e

called

clinical

ttitude.

..

The

most bvious nd

yet

most ommonrime

gainstbjectivity

s

the

use

of

hor-

tatory

nd

value

words nd

phrases.

enerallypeaking,

'should'

nd

ought'-not

o mention

must' retaboo.

..

Intelligence

eports

ind heir

erit

n

tersenessnd

larity

ratherhan

xpressive

escription.

....

Proust,

oyce,

r

Gertrudeteinwould

ll

be

equally

ut

f

lace

n

R&A.17

While

here as

this

mposition

f cientifictandards

of

objectivity

rom

he

outside,

nside

he subbranches

new

cientific

ethods

ere

pplied

o the

problems

f

war

albeit

not

necessarilyy

geographers).

conomics

wasthe

paragon

ase.

Through

ts

inkage

o

Operations

Research

OR),

a WorldWarII invention

ombining

mathematicalheories

rawn rom

hysics

nd

engin-

eering

o solvediverse

military

roblems

Kevles

1979;

Pickering

995a;

Mirowski

002),

economics as drawn

intothe

world f

wartimecience.The

Enemy bjec-

tives

Unit,

n

R&A

outpost

n

London,

was

charged

from eptember 942 with dentifyinghe most m-

portant

erman

argets

orAllied

bombing

aids

Katz

1989).

For he

conomists,

his

was obe done

rigorously

and

scientifically

hrough

mathematical

Philosophy

f

Air

Power"

Katz

1989,

117).

For

Philip

Mirowski

he

work f conomiststOSS andsimilar

ilitarygencies

during

WorldWar

I

was

turning

oint.

Only

rom

he

1940s

onwardhas American conomics

ssumed ts

characteristicodern

ormatnd scientific

retensions.

...

TheAmerican

rthodoxy

ecamemore

ormal,

ore

abstract,

ore

mathematical,

nd

more ascinated ith

issues

f

lgorithmic

ationality

nd

statisticalnference"

(Mirowski002, 157). In Haraway's erms,conomics

was

hailed,

one of

the

tems

mangled

nthe WorldWar

I

regime long

with

physics,

mathematics. nd

engineer-

ing,turning

nto

something uite

different.

A

transformation

ot

quite

as extreme lso occurred

in

psychology.

he OSS's

Psychological

ivision,

ed

by

the

University

f California

professor

Robert

Tyron,

undertook n elaborate

program

f

behavioral

esting

o

weed

out unsuitable recruitsfor

espionage

missions.

Assisted

by

the

anthropologists

lyde

Kluckhohn and

Alexander

Leighton, long

with the social

psychologist



11/21

816

Barnes

nd

Farish

Kurt

ewin,

OSS

staffcrutinized

he actions f more

than

5,000

candidates.

he

summaryeport,

Assess-

ment f

Men,"

s dense nd

heavily

mathematical,

he

product

f

"months

f statistical

alculation"

ided

by

IBM. It describes

rigorous

chedule f

exams,

nter-

views, roup asks, uestionnaires,ndphysicalctiv-

ities,

ncluding

"map

memory"

xercise,

ll

ntended

o

shed

light

on

general

variables

uch as

motivation,

emotional

tability,eadership,

nd

initiative

OSS

As-

sessment taff

948,

3-4,

30-31,

124, 467;

Capshew

1999,

111-14).

Some

psychologists

howorked n the

Assessment

roject

ater

egretted

heir ctions r were

troubled

y

he

project'sepeated

validation

roblems,"

but

others

arried election

rocedures

o

the

much

wider

esting roup

f

the

public

t

large,

onvinced

"that

hey

ad a valuable

ontribution

o

make

oward

viable human relations"

Herman

1995, 9, 44-46;

Capshew1999,

5).1s

Moregenerally,he concernwith

rigor,

uantification,

tatistical

eneralization,

nd reli-

ance on

calculating

achines ound

n

the assessment

study

ecame

key

haracteristics

f

postwar

merican

academic

sychology

Herman 995).

At

east

within

he

nongeographical

ocial ciences t

R&A,

strides ere husmade toward

cientism,

ath-

ematization,

xplanation,

nd thesolution f

practical

problems.

&A was not about mere

description,

he

construction

f

typological

chemes,

and

finding

uniqueness.

eographers

arely

ontributedo the

arger

scientific

roject,

lthough

ome ikeUllman

may

have

wished hat hey id. WithHartshornes the final r-

biter nd author f

seemingly

he

final

word n a

geo-

graphical ractice

hat

aid

geography

as not lawlike

science,

twas

perhaps

ot

urprising.

Critical

esponses

y

geographers

o the

perceived

sluggishness

nd

marginalization

f their

iscipline

id

not surface ntil fter he

war.When the

complaints

came,

hey

ypically

evolvedround various eficien-

cies

...

in

the[ir]

previous

raining,"

hich

handi-

capped

their

bility

o

carry

ut their

wartime]

ork

withmaximumuccess"

Committee

946,

206).

EdwardAckerman

1945)

offeredhe first nd the

most bluntcritique: Wartime xperience as high-

lighted

number f flaws

n

theoretical

pproach

nd in

the

past

methods f

training

men for he

profession."

n

particular,

ckermanfocuses

on

two central

nadequa-

cies: an

"inability

o handle

foreign anguage

sources,

and a lack of

competence

n

topical

or

systematic

ub-

jects"

(Ackerman

1945,

122).

It

is

the

latter,

f

course,

that

directly

alled out the deficiencies f Hartshorne's

Nature. In a less-than-veiled

ig

at his former

oss,

Ackerman

1945, 122)

argues

that"The second

[prob-

lem],

lack of

systematic pecialty

among

geography

graduates,

ouches he

heart f well-known

roblem

n

our

field-interpretation

nd ts

methodology.lthough

the main ines f

methodologicalnterpretation

re fa-

miliar

o almost

very

professional

eographer,

hey

might

ellbe re-examinedt this

ime,

ecause f

heir

bearingnfuturerainingndresearchngeography."o

make he

point

ven learer e

adds:

If

ur iteratures

to be

composed

f

anything

more than a seriesof

pleasant

ultural

ssays,

..

we hall

o well o consider

more

pecialized,

r

ess

diffuse

pproach.

he demands

of a future

eacetime

re not

like

to

prove

ny

more

tolerant f

uperficiality

han he demands

fwartime"

(Ackerman

945,

129).

Ackerman

as

being

hailed

y

the

emerging

ilitary-industrial-academicomplex,

nd

in

more

ways

han

ne,

given

hat

he ended

up

working

full-time

rom 955

for

onprofits,

ncluding

esources

for heFuturenc. and ater he

Carnegie

nstitutionf

Washington,nstitutionshat ay, ikeRAND, in the

intersticesf

commerce,

overnment,

nd academia

(White1974).19

The National Research

Council

Committee

n

Training

nd

Standards

n

the

Geographic

rofession

offeredess

forthright

riticisms,

ven

vacillatingmong

positions

Committee

946).

This s not

urprisingiven

thatthe Committee oasted ifteen

embers

nd

that

Richard artshorneas he

hair.

n

the

ne

hand,

na

section

n

"Future

pportunities

or

esearch

n

geog-

raphy,"

here s a restatementf the

Hartshornian

e-

gional

ine:

"geographers

ill

be

expected

..

to serve

primarilys hewers fdata nd drawersfmaps.'One is

not

to be

discouragedy

that ttitude.

hese are con-

tributions

ighly

alued

n

applied

esearch.....

n

most

cases,

what

eography

an

provide

an bedemonstrated

only y

accomplishments,

ot

by

theoretical

rgument"

(Committee

946,

203-4).

But

n the

following

ection,

"Lessons earned rom he war

experience,"

he

griev-

ances

begin

(Committee

946, 207,

209),

directed

exactly

t the deficienciesfthe old

regionalpproach,

including

ts ackof sense f

problem

there

s

"only

...

an

elementary

etailed

escription

f

pattern"),

ts

lackof

relevance

"heavily

verloaded ith

nnecessary

material"),ts lackofprecision"professionaleogra-

phers

.. will

require

much more

grounding

n

statis-

tics"),

and its lack of

knowledge

n

systematic

ields

("The

experience

in

Washington

ndicates that too

many

geographers

ere found o be naive

or

superficial

in

their

pproach

o economic and

politicalproblems

n

which

they

had to

contribute").

Ackerman's

piece

was

explicit,

the Committee's

implicit. Geographers, part

from

cartographers,

ad

ultimately

otfaredwell

n

wartime

ntelligence

ervice

because

they

had been

previously

irected toward

a



12/21

Between

egions:

cience,

Militarism,

nd American

eography

romWorldWar

to Cold War

817

conception

f

region

hat

emphasized

real

differenti-

ation

over

systematicpproaches,

escription

ver

ex-

planation,

ypology

ver

theory,

ords

ver

numbers,

insularity

ver

openness,

nd

broad

eclecticism

ver

narrow

nstrumentalism.

ut this

approach

ould not

continue. he siren alls ofthemilitary-industrial-aca-

demic

complex

were

getting

ouder s academics

e-

turned

o their

niversities

ithnew contacts

nd

as

new

organs

f the

national

ecurity

tate

merged.

n-

deed,

from

ts

wartime

xperience,

eography

as

al-

ready

becoming

ncreasingly

nmeshed

within

the

complex.

omething

ad to

give.

The Cold

War

nd he

ciencef

Regions

Closing

Geography

t

Harvard

...

the

ne

big

ime f

hange,

he ime f he1950s.

-(Kish

1983,

07)

Two

igns

f

omethingiving

ere

nstitutional.

Between Regions_ Science, Militarism, Hy From World War to Cold War Trevor J. Barnes and Matthew...

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Transcript of Between Regions_ Science, Militarism, Hy From World War to Cold War Trevor J. Barnes and Matthew...