Background
Michael Gordin was born in the United States.
Michael Gordin
1996
Harvard Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Michael Gordin received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1996
2001
1350 Massachusetts Ave, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
From 1996 to 2001 Michael Gordin studied at Harvard University, where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the History of Science.
2015
Corvallis, OR 97331, United States
Dr. Michael D. Gordin examining how science and philosophy developed in the career of Arnost Kolman at Oregon State University.
2018
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Alice Pisani, Ben Machava, Mari Jo Velasco, Natalie Prizel, and Matthew Larsen (with director Michael Gordin) having joined the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts
1996
Harvard Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Michael Gordin received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1996
2001
1350 Massachusetts Ave, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
From 1996 to 2001 Michael Gordin studied at Harvard University, where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the History of Science.
2015
Corvallis, OR 97331, United States
Dr. Michael D. Gordin examining how science and philosophy developed in the career of Arnost Kolman at Oregon State University.
2018
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Alice Pisani, Ben Machava, Mari Jo Velasco, Natalie Prizel, and Matthew Larsen (with director Michael Gordin) having joined the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts
Michael Gordin
Michael D. Gordin
(A Well-Ordered Thing draws a portrait of this chemist in ...)
A Well-Ordered Thing draws a portrait of this chemist in three full dimensions. Historian Michael Gordin also details Mendeleev's complex relationship with the Russian Empire that was his home. From his attack on Spiritualism to his humiliation at the hands of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, from his near-mythical hot-air balloon trip to his failed voyage to the Arctic, this is the story of an extraordinary man deeply invested in the good of his country. And the ideals that shaped his work in politics and culture were the same ones that led a young chemistry professor to start putting elements in order Mendeleev was a loyal subject of the Tsar, but he was also a maverick who thought that only an outsider could perfect a modern Russia.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/046502775X/?tag=2022091-20
2004
(Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended be...)
Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended because the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan forced it to surrender. Five Days in August boldly presents a different interpretation: that the military did not clearly understand the atomic bomb's revolutionary strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the attack, and that not only had experts planned and fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at all.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691168431/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(The newest annual volume of Osiris, Intelligentsia Scienc...)
The newest annual volume of Osiris, Intelligentsia Science explores the transformations in science in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, from serfdom to Sputnik, as a series of developments in Russian culture. The contributors argue that it was the generation of the 1860s that transformed intelligentsia into a central notion of Russian popular discourse, cementing its association with revolutionary politics and with science. Science became the cornerstone of the intelligentsia's ideological and political projects, either as an alternative to socialism or more often as its nominal raison d'etre. The Russian century may, in fact, be over, but the interrelation of the intelligentsia and science to form intelligentsia science proves enduring.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226304574/?tag=2022091-20
2008
(On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed "F...)
On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed "First Lightning," exploded in the deserts of Kazakhstan. This surprising international event marked the beginning of an arms race that would ultimately lead to nuclear proliferation beyond the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States. With the use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin follows a trail of espionage, secrecy, deception, political brinksmanship, and technical innovation to provide a fresh understanding of the nuclear arms race.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312655428/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(The concepts of utopia and dystopia have received much hi...)
The concepts of utopia and dystopia have received much historical attention. Utopias have traditionally signified the ideal future: large-scale social, political, ethical, and religious spaces that have yet to be realized. Utopia/Dystopia offers a fresh approach to these ideas. Rather than locate utopias in grandiose programs of future totality, the book treats these concepts as historically grounded categories and examines how individuals and groups throughout time have interpreted utopian visions in their daily present, with an eye toward the future.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EYT8KG/?tag=2022091-20
2010
(Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religi...)
Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religious writings of humanity reveal that around 1500 BC, a comet swept perilously close to Earth, triggering widespread natural disasters and threatening the destruction of all life before settling into solar orbit as Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022610172X/?tag=2022091-20
2012
(In the United States at the height of the Cold War, rough...)
In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass. Its home was the human sciences psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among others and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GMEJ0L8/?tag=2022091-20
2013
(English is the language of science today. No matter which...)
English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. But that hasn’t always been the case. Though there was a time when Latin dominated the field, for centuries science has been a polyglot enterprise, conducted in a number of languages whose importance waxed and waned over time until the rise of English in the twentieth century. Scientific Babel reveals his incredible command of the literature, language, and intellectual essence of science past and present. No reader who takes this linguistic journey with him will be disappointed.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022600029X/?tag=2022091-20
2015
(From ancient Roman poetry to attempts to communicate with...)
From ancient Roman poetry to attempts to communicate with extra-terrestrials, Professor Gordin traces the history of the set of languages by means of which scientific knowledge has been produced and communicated. He shows not only the progression from languages as varied as the nationalities of scientists to the present monoglot international community of scientists communicating in English, but also how the dominance of English was never a foregone conclusion.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1781251142/?tag=2022091-20
2015
Michael Gordin was born in the United States.
Michael Gordin received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1996 with Highest Honors. From 1996 to 2001 he studied at Harvard University, where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the History of Science.
Michael started his career in education as an assistant professor of history at Princeton University. Later he joined Harvard University Society of Fellows where he served as a junior fellow in 2001-2003 and 2004-2005. He worked at Faculty Committee on Grading at Princeton University from 2005 to 2007.
He then served as an Assistant Professor of the Department of History at Princeton University from September 2003 to 2007. Michael moved to Berlin for some time where he was a Visiting Scholar at Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science from September 2007 to August 2008. He also continued to serve as an Associate Professor at Princeton University from July 2007 to August 2009. From July 2009-June 2012 he was Director of Program in Russian and Eurasian Studies there.
In 2009 Michael D. Gordin started to work again at Princeton University as a Professor of History until 2013. From 2012 to 2013 he was a Founding Director of Fung Global Fellows Program there. He is an Associated Faculty of Slavic Languages and Literatures from 2012. Gordin was Director of Graduate Studies of Program in History of Science from 2010 to 2011 and from 2016 to 2017.
Currently, Michael holds positions of Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History from July 2013 and Director of Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts from 2017.
Michael D. Gordin specializes in the history of the Imperial Russia and the history of the modern physical sciences. Gordin has written articles on the fledgling field of science in Russia in the early eighteenth century, the relationship between literature and science in that country, and the history of biological warfare during the late Soviet period. His first book is a cultural history of Mendeleev in the context of Imperial St. Petersburg “A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table” was published in 2004.
Michael has also worked extensively on the early history of nuclear weapons and is the author of “Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War” came out in 2007, a history of the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II, and an international history of nuclear intelligence “Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly” in 2009.
In 2012, University of Chicago Press published his history of the controversies surrounding the boundary between science and pseudoscience focusing on the career of Immanuel Velikovsky, entitled “The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe”, and in 2013, the press also released “How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality” which he co-authored with Lorraine Daston, Paul Erickson, Thomas Sturm, Rebecca Lemov, and Judy Klein.
His most recent book “Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English”, a history of modern science from the point of view of the languages in which science has been conducted, was published by the University of Chicago Press and Profile Books in Spring 2015.
In the spring of 2020, Princeton University Press will publish Professor Gordin’s latest book, Einstein in Bohemia, which explores the significance of Prague, often overlooked as a marginal and out-of-the-way city, in the history of science through the lens of Albert Einstein’s connections with the city.
Michael has also co-edited the four-volume “Routledge History of the Modern Physical Sciences” in 2001 with Peter Galison and David Kaiser, “Intelligentsia Science: The Russian Century, 1860-1960” in 2008 with Karl Hall and Alexei Kojevnikov and “Utopia/Dystopia: Conditions of Historical Possibility” in 2010 with Helen Tilley and Gyan Prakash.
Michael D. Gordin was twice awarded a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from Harvard University in 1999 and 2000. He received Merit Fellowship and Individual Advanced Research Fellowship in 2000.
Michael was an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow for 2011-2012. In 2011 he was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and was named a Guggenheim Fellow. He also was Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2015-2016.
(Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religi...)
2012(In the United States at the height of the Cold War, rough...)
2013(The newest annual volume of Osiris, Intelligentsia Scienc...)
2008(From ancient Roman poetry to attempts to communicate with...)
2015(Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended be...)
2007(On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed "F...)
2009(A Well-Ordered Thing draws a portrait of this chemist in ...)
2004(The concepts of utopia and dystopia have received much hi...)
2010(English is the language of science today. No matter which...)
2015Michael D. Gordin is a member of the History of Science Society; Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Task Force for the Future of the Humanities.
