Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America - by Mario Daniels (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Today the activities of foreign scientists, especially from countries seen as adversaries, are policed by US "deemed export" regulations that treat every communication of formally unclassified but controlled technical information as if a physical export had occurred. Considerable effort is devoted to regulating the flow of sensitive but unclassified knowledge, and the state has developed instruments like export controls and visa policies to restrict access to it. In this groundbreaking book, Mario Daniels and John Krige set out to show that export control regulations have had enormous political relevance for American debates about national security, foreign policy, and trade policy since 1945. Indeed, they argue that from the 1940s to today the issue of how to control the transnational movement of information has been central to the thinking and actions of the guardians of the American national security state. The expansion of control over knowledge and know-how is apparent from the increasingly systematic inclusion of universities and research institutions into a system that in the 1950s and 1960s mainly targeted business activities. As this book vividly reveals, classification was not the only-and not even the most important-regulatory instrument that came into being in the post-war era"--

Book Synopsis

The first historical study of export control regulations as a tool for the sharing and withholding of knowledge.

In this groundbreaking book, Mario Daniels and John Krige set out to show the enormous political relevance that export control regulations have had for American debates about national security, foreign policy, and trade policy since 1945. Indeed, they argue that from the 1940s to today the issue of how to control the transnational movement of information has been central to the thinking and actions of the guardians of the American national security state. The expansion of control over knowledge and know-how is apparent from the increasingly systematic inclusion of universities and research institutions into a system that in the 1950s and 1960s mainly targeted business activities. As this book vividly reveals, classification was not the only-and not even the most important-regulatory instrument that came into being in the postwar era.

Review Quotes

"Daniels and Krige's attempt is remarkable because of the breadth of the research required, but also because it breaks new ground. . . . This is a necessary, useful, and foundational book for aspects of twen­tieth- and twenty-first-century US policy that in combination typically get short shrift. For scholars interested in Cold War foreign policy, the history of technology and institutions, sociology, or twentieth-century intellectual history, this will be a book to have."-- "Technology and Culture"

"This is a terrific and important book. To make sense of our current moment of post-neoliberal revirement, we need new, engaged, and detailed political histories of state institutions. Daniels and Krige show us what that might look like."-- "H-Diplo Roundtable XXIV-8"

"A valuable and much-needed addition to the literature on export controls. This book will easily become a main reference for anyone trying to understand the development of the US export control system and the central role that knowledge flow controls have played in that process."--Sam Weiss Evans, Harvard University

"An excellent book. It will provide an opening to a critical conversation that is needed in the United States right now on the relationship among export controls, national security, economic competitiveness, and academic freedom. This conversation will only grow in the coming decade, and this book will provide a touchstone for it."--Michael A. Dennis, United States Naval War College

About the Author

Mario Daniels is the DAAD Fachlektor at the Duitsland Instituut at the University of Amsterdam. John Krige is the Kranzberg Professor Emeritus in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of several books, including Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Europe, and the editor of Knowledge Flows in a Global Age: A Transnational Approach, also published by the University of Chicago Press.