Everett Mendelsohn
Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus
Research Professor of the History of Science
Everett Mendelsohn was on the faculty of the Department of the History of Science since 1960. He worked extensively on the history of the life sciences as well as on aspects of the social and sociological history of science and the relations of science and modern societies. Prior to retirement, he taught a large undergraduate course as part of Harvard's Core Curriculum, which focuses on science and society in the twentieth century; also he was the former Master of Dudley House, the graduate student center.
He was the founder and former editor of the Journal of the History of Biology and a founder of the yearbook Sociology of the Sciences. He served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Social Science and Medicine, Social Epistemology, Social Studies of Science, and Fundamenta Scientiae, among others.
He was past president of the International Council for Science Policy Studies and was deeply involved in the relations between science and modern war as a founder of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Committee on Science, Arms Control, and National Security, and the American Academy of Arts and Science's Committee on International Security Studies. He was a founder and first president of the Cambridge based Institute for Peace and International Security. He was awarded the Gregor Mendel Medal of the reorganized Czechoslovak Academy of Science in 1991. During 1994 he held the Olof Palme Professorship in Sweden. He received recognition for his teaching when awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize in 1996.
Professor Mendelsohn passed away on June 6, 2023. He was 91 years of age. Please refer to his remembrance in The New York Times, 7/15/2023, for further information.
"History of Science Professor Everett Mendelsohn Remembered As ‘Colossus’ in His Field"
The Harvard Crimson, August 8, 2023
"Hist. of Sci. Prof. To Bid Farewell"
The Harvard Crimson, June 6, 2007
"Everett Mendelsohn's Social Context"
The Harvard Crimson, November 5, 1973
Publications:
Among recent publications are the jointly edited volumes, The Practices of Human Genetics (1999); Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors (1994); Technology, Pessimism and Postmodernism (1993); Science, Technology, and the Military (1988). He has also written recent articles including: "Thinking Like a Mountain: The Epistemological Puzzle of Environmentalism;" "The Politics of Pessimism: Science and Technology Circa 1968;" "Prophet of Our Discontent, Lewis Mumford Confronts the Bomb;" "The Social Locus of Scientific Instruments;" "Religious Fundamentalism and the Sciences;" and "Grasping the Elusive Peace in the Middle East."