The Surveillance Imperative ― Geosciences During the Cold War and Beyond

From Michel Foucault's early studies on penitentiaries to analyses of security policies after 9/11, surveillance has become a key notion for understanding power and control in the modern world. Curiously, though, the concept has thus far received limited application within the history of science and technology, with the existing scholarship focusing largely on cases of scientific espionage rather than the practices of scientists. Using the overarching concept of the "surveillance imperative," this collection of essays offers a new window on the evolution of the environmental sciences during and after the Cold War. Collectively, these contributions argue that the surveillance imperative - that is, a conceptual link between the drives to know the enemy and to know the earth - offers a fruitful approach to the recent history of the earth sciences.

Simone Turchetti is Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester and the Principal Investigator of the five-year project "The Earth Under Surveillance," funded by the European Research Council. His books include The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics (University of Chicago Press, 2012).

Peder Roberts is a post-doctoral researcher at the Division of History of Science, Technology, and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He holds a PhD in history from Stanford University. His current research interests include the history and geopolitics of science during the Cold War, particularly involving the oceans, along with the past and future of the polar regions. His most recent book is The European Antarctic: Science and Strategy in Scandinavia and the British Empire (Palgrave, 2011).