No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought

"More than anyone else, [Rosenberg] has moved medicine from the periphery of the historical enterprise to a position much nearer the center. Around the world he is recognized as the leading medical historian of the late twentieth century." -- Ronald L. Numbers, Isis In its original edition, No Other Gods offered a pioneering and influential examination of the ways in which social institutions and values shaped American scientific practice and thought. In this revised and expanded edition, Rosenberg directs our attention to the dilemma posed by the social study of science: How can we reconcile the scientist's understanding of science as a quest for truth and knowledge with the historian's conviction that all knowledge bears the marks of the culture which gave it birth? "When No Other Gods first appeared in 1976 scholars praised its wide ranging yet coherent history of scientific enterprise and the multiple identities of science in American life. From Rosenberg our students learned to contextualize and discipline their historical inquiries. Today the book secures a dimension that was once ironically obscured by its breadth and our optimism and we see that Rosenberg has brilliantly exposed and emphasized the ambiguous moral contours of practice empowered by knowledge."--Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz, Harvard University" No Other Gods had a tremendous impact on me when I started to teach and write about the many patterns in which science and American life are woven into each other. Rosenberg helped teach us how to pay attention to the rich detail and thick complexity of scientific and medical practice as an intrinsic part of culture."--Donna Haraway, University of California at Santa Cruz