The Surveillance Imperative

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.