"James E. Webb, Technocracy, and the New Deal Roots of "Space Age Management
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4899810 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Allan A Needell (0000-0001-8707-1933, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 790-814 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tech.2017.0081 |
| PMID | 28890459 |
| OpenAlex | W2751185039 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 12 |
James E. Webb, NASA's Administrator during the hectic years preparing to send American astronauts to the Moon, has come to represent the pinnacle of postwar American optimism and support for large-scale, technically complex national undertakings. Success in 1969 lent credence to Webb's faith in "space age management." By the 1980s such "technocratic optimism" had precipitously declined. Since 1985, with the publication of Walter A. McDougall's Pulitzer Prize winning. . . The Heavens and the Earth, the rise and decline of such optimism has often been framed in the context of Cold War ideology and competition. In this study, aspects of Webb's vision are traced back prior to World War II. It argues that Cold War emphasis, although certainly crucial for understanding the institutions and practices Webb directed, nevertheless tends to mask the full extent of the 1980s rejection of long standing attitudes toward planning, expertise, and rigorous scientific and technical knowledge
Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Credence · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Faith · Ideology · Management · Optimism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Space Age · Technocracy · History · History and Developments in Astronomy · Law · Philosophy · Space exploration and regulation · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
Consigning the Twentieth Century to History
The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980
Science, Cold War, and the American State
Interpreting the Moon Landings
The Primacy of Science in Modernity, of Technology in Postmodernity, and of Ideology in the History of Technology
Lessons in Progress
Governor O. Max Gardner
Toward a Planned Society
Conservative Constraints
The Heavens and the Earth
The Scientific Age
The Technocratic Image and the Theory of Technocracy
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |