United States Air Force History: A Guide to Documentary Sources by Lawrence J. PaszekReview by: Paul W. ClarkIsis, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Dec., 1976), pp. 620-621Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/230568 .

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620 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 67 * 4 * 239 (1976)

authors have striven to fill in the gaps. Parenthetically, the volume exemplifies

certain trends of growing significance in the history of science. The survey was undertaken with the aid of a research grant, the work has three authors (four, judging by the acknowledgments), and publication was accomplished by photography from typescript. In these three ways the study indicates that the past of science is no longer created or transmitted quite as it used to be.

This work, it is hoped, will help bring about other transformations in our past. One such transformation would be a great- er awareness of the scientific periphery. The corresponding societies of the British Association exemplify the formations of that social, institutional, and intellectual twilight on which the high elite of science indirectly depended for its well-being if not directly for its sunshine. Another trans- formation might be the realization that the range of the sources for and the complexity of the social situations of more recent science make quantitative analysis one of the historian's fundamental tools. For now it is enough to say that here is a volume useful to the student of British culture and essential to any reference collection in the history of science.

ARNOLD THACKRAY Department of History and Sociology of Science

University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174

Lawrence J. Paszek (Compiler). United States Air Force History: A Guide to Documen- tary Sources. v + 245 pp., illus., gloss., indexes. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1973. $1.80 (paper).

Instituted under the brief but useful tenure of Brigadier General Brian Gun- derson as Chief, Office of Air Force His- tory, this guide organizes for the first time the widely scattered sources of U.S. Air Force history. Compiler Lawrence J. Paszek conventionally divides available resources into five categories: Depositories of the Air Force, National Archives and Records Ser- vice, University Collections, Miscellaneous Depositories, and Other Related Sources.

The work might have realized more of its potential if an editorial review committee had aided the compiler. Despite the relative youth of the Air Force, the number of

documentary sources regarding U.S. mili- tary aviation is too large for one person to cope with successfully. An uneven quality consequently results in the descriptions of sources, a defect partly recognized in the foreword. Where thinness shades into omis- sion the defect becomes unacceptable, especially with regard to military sources on which one could reasonably expect ac- curate and thorough information.

The description of holdings at the Air Force Academy illustrates the problem. Of these the Gimbel Collection is one of the finest aeronautical collections in the country and deserves far more attention than the few lines it receives. It contains several subsidiary collections, including an excellent one on ballooning. It also prides itself on numerous objets d'art reflecting man's dream of flight: for example, Baby- lonian seal stones, commemorative medals, art glass, and posters, as well as several incunabula.

The Academy Library also keeps files on the careers of all its graduates and faculty members, including their publica- tions. Their graduate theses, for example, constitute an important part of the record. A mention of the considerable art and memorabilia collection commemorating aviation leaders and aircraft would have added further depth. Although there were several passing references to an oral history program, no single paragraph addressed that valuable resource produced at the Academy. An adequate treatment would have explained that the Academy was an early member of the Oral History Associa- tion and that the transcripts of tapes re- corded at the Academy are jointly available at Columbia University.

Thinness occurs as well in the descrip- tions of holdings at the Army Signal Corps Museum, the U.S. Army Historical Re- search Collection, and the U.S. Air Force Museum Research Collection. The Army Historical Research Collection at Carlisle Barracks, for example, also publishes a bibliographic series, holds a unique collec- tion of military journals built up by military attaches abroad from the nineteenth cen- tury on, and has copies of war plans written by senior officers as exercises while attend- ing the Army War College.

Because written Air Force history itself lacks adequate historiography, it is perhaps not surprising that this work fails to reveal a significant historiographic design. De-

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 67 . 4 * 239 (1976) 621

spite its utility, it thus represents a lost opportunity to make a truly significant contribution. Since the Air Force of all the services may be viewed as archetypal of the military-academic-governmental-indus- trial complex, a more comprehensive and imaginative guide was certainly possible.

Insufficient topical continuity and nar- row conceptual scope, as evidenced in part by the scarcity of references to business firms, undermine an otherwise admirable beginning. The work appears to be the victim of undue haste. The important rela- tionship of military aviation to society de- mands a serious exploration of the his- toriographic problems of Air Force history.

As a preliminary effort this guide un- deniably makes a valuable contribution. Subsequent editions can be more valuable if a thoughtful commentary on the needs and opportunities in the historiography of Air Force history accompany the work and inform its design.

PAUL W. CLARK

United States Embassy London, England

a PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Yehuda Elkana (Editor). The Interaction between Science and Philosophy. (The Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation Series.) xvii + 481 pp. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: The Hu- manities Press, 1974. $17.50.

This volume, which is a festschrift for Shmuel Sambursky, assumes from the out- set that there is an important interaction between philosophy and science. Perhaps the most interesting contribution it makes in discussing that relationship is the attack on the legitimacy of the internal-external distinction in the historiography of science. This is expressed most clearly in Imre Lakatos' paper, "History and its Rational Reconstructions," and the discussions sur- rounding it.

Lakatos argues that where one draws the line between external and internal history depends upon one's definition of "ratio- nality," all the irrational aspects of science being the subject matter of external history. The basis of every scientific methodology is a definition of rationality, and accord- ingly every theory of scientific methodology

has as its counterpart an historiography of science. "All methodologies serve as the basis for a rational reconstruction of history and can be criticized by criticizing the rational historical reconstructions to which they lead," says Lakatos. The history of science is therefore a testing ground for theories of scientific methodology.

Lakatos defines rationality in terms of scientific research programs which have a "hard core" and a "positive heuristic." The hard core contains a metaphysical view of the structure of the world, while the positive heuristic provides the basis for theoretical growth and defines problems for research. As long as the positive heuristic is strong- that is, as long as theoretical development anticipates empirical results-the research program is characterized by a progressive problem shift. In this context "rationality" consists in developing a theory and testing it. Since no theory, according to Lakatos, ever provides a complete explanation of nature, anomalies are expected to emerge, but it is not irrational to overlook them as long as the heuristic is progressive. In fact, Lakatos describes the change of focus from expansion of theoretical and empiri- cal results to anomalies as a "degenerating problemshift." Thus where many historians see the adherence to a theory in the face of anomalies as attributable to external, irrational factors, Lakatos sees it as com- pletely rational, and he explains this behav- ior by developments internal to the research program.

What remains external for Lakatos? The answer is provided by what he understands by "methodology." For him methodology is a set of criteria to be used in deciding the validity or even rationality of a finished product; it is not to be understood as the procedure which a scientist or group of scientists use in arriving at results. Thus sociopsychological factors which enter into the process of discovery are irrational and hence external.

Although not intended to be critical of Lakatos, the papers by Z. Bechler, E. Men- delsohn, and Y. Ne'eman call into question the demarcation between internal and ex- ternal history drawn by his model. Bechler, in discussing the reaction to Newton's theory of color, and Mendelsohn, in writing about nineteenth-century reductionist biol- ogy, both argue that the criteria for judging scientific results cannot be abstracted from the sociopolitical environment. Similarly,

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