The Politics of Excellence: Behind the Nobel Prize in Science by Robert Marc Friedman

From the Publisher

The Nobel Prize is widely seen as a mark of genius and the greatest reward a scientist can receive in his or her career. Universities and research institutions vie with each other to attract Nobel laureates, and students in the sciences dream of one day being prizewinners themselves. How could we possibly doubt the integrity of this prestigious award?

In this first in-depth study of the Nobel archives, Robert Marc Friedman reveals a prize that is above neither the dictates of fashion and politics, nor the personal agendas of committee members. The cases of Albert Einstein and Lise Meitner are only the best known among many that Friedman examines that underscore how on more than one occasion it has conferred acclaim on mediocrity and denied true brilliance its due. Chronicling the prize's 100-year history, he charts how, in spite of recurring controversy, the prize has attained to the prominence it holds today.

An eye-opening look at one of our greatest cultural icons, The Politics of Excellence ultimately questions the legacy of the Nobel Prize in a culture characterized by intense competition for resources, indecorous commercialism, and hype.

Friedman deftly pulls back the curtain to reveal a vivid and sometimes emotional politics behind the selection of Nobel laureates. For all those interested in science and its history, this is a must read book.
—Robert H. Kargon, Johns Hopkins University

The Politics of Excellence goes to the heart of the Nobel Prize in physics and chemistry, and liberates history from misconception. Friedman's access has been unprecedented and his conclusions are provocative. No one truly interested in the Prize can afford to miss it. —Roy MacLeod, University of Sydney

Publishers Weekly

This idealistic study underscores the personal, scientific and cultural self-interest behind the selection of the Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry. Friedman, professor of history at the University of California at San Diego, traces the prize since Alfred Nobel's enigmatic testament became public in 1897. He examines those nominations and awards that fell short of Nobel's vision of the "best" in science, instead rewarding middling achievement. Albert Abraham Michelson, for instance, won the Nobel in 1907 for mastering precision measurement, the specialty of one committee member that year; his attempt to measure Earth's movements within the ether, meanwhile, is widely considered his greater achievement, as it spurred the physics establishment's move away from the ether theory. Today, Friedman argues, the title of Nobel Laureate offers prestige and resources; Nobel's wish that the prize recognize people providing "the greatest benefit to mankind" can be overshadowed by "narrow professional interests, boosterism, and careerist advancement." Friedman seeks to reassert Nobel's vision by revealing malfeasance behind the award. Albert Einstein provides the most well-known example: his 1921 prize was delayed for a year by a provincial, stiff-necked academy that recognized Einstein's law of photoelectric effect, but not relativity theory. Friedman's painstaking research sometimes yields heavy-handed analysis. His outrage at Nobel politics results in an uncompromisingly limited view of progress in science, which, from Galileo onward, has rarely come easily. The Nobel archives are unavailable after 1950, further frustrating the book's scope and forcing the author to sprint through the laterhistory with parting shots and a hasty though well-reasoned appeal for change. With less 20-20 hindsight and greater objectivity, this book would fill a pop-historical void. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

There is politics in everything, including the most prestigious awards in science; here's the inside story, told by a historian of science currently living in Norway. When Alfred Nobel left the bulk of his fortune to found a series of prizes in the arts and sciences, he must have foreseen some of the infighting that would rage around his bequest. To begin with, he designated several rival bodies within the Swedish scientific establishment to administer the prizes. Just as critical were the rivalries within each of the sciences. Not just personal rivalries: industrial chemists and theoretical chemists fought over which branch of their discipline would receive recognition. A similar divide between experimental and theoretical physics contributed to the delay in recognizing Einstein, who received the prize in 1922 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. (The Academy ordered him not to mention relativity in his acceptance speech-a restriction that Einstein blithely ignored.) World War I forced tough decisions due to the support for the war effort by many German scientists. Some argued that the prize should not be awarded at all in wartime. A particular scandal arose with the belated award of the 1918 chemistry prize to Fritz Haber, whose development of a process to obtain nitrogen from the atmosphere was overshadowed by his contributions to the war effort in the form of poison gas. Pro-German sentiment on the committee also contributed to the acrimony of the debate over Einstein, who had taken a strong antiwar stance. Anti-Semitism also played a role in the debates. Drawing on primary sources, Friedman examines the personalities not only of the laureates but of the lesser-knowncommittee members, and usefully illuminates the social and intellectual context of science. Often dry, but full of insight into the history of the most famous prize in science.

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