Beach Haven

Bibliography
​Guston, David H., and Kenneth Keniston, . 1994. The Fragile Contract: University Science and the Federal Government. Cambridge & London: The MIT Press.
 
Review by Michael Beach

This book includes multiple authors. Guston and Keniston are the editors. Each chapter examines some aspect of the relationship between scientific research and government funding sources. The classic challenge for academics is determining research targets. They can range from general so-called ‘basic’ science topics to very specific ways of employing science and technology. Although the generalized idea of scientists desire for unfettered research agenda and the narrow outcomes preferred by funders can be true, it is a very simplistic description. Many researchers are motivated by the financial and prestige benefits of patented discoveries. Also, there are funders more interested in general science than in marketable inventions. Another consideration is the widespread establishment of academic institutes associated with universities that act as both research facilities and business incubators.

Among the considerations some of the authors approach includes the idea of trust. Value-based words such as trust, integrity, and accountability are common in the articles. Actors most generally defined are researchers of various sorts, government and business representatives, and differing descriptions of ‘the public’. What motivates the funders? What motivates the researcher? What role do members of the public play?

The best way I can think of to share the flavor of perspectives is to list the chapter titles. They include - The Social Contract for Science; Universities, the Public, and the Government: The State of the Partnership; On Doing One’s Damnedest: The Evolution of Trust in Scientific Findings; Integrity and Accountability in Research; The Public Face of Science: What Can We Learn from Disputes?; How Large an R&D Enterprise?; Views from the Benches: Funding Biomedical Research and the Physical Sciences; Financing Science after the Cold War; Indirect Costs and the Government-University Partnership; Research in U.S. Universities in a Technologically Competitive World; Constructive Responses to the Changing Social Context of University-Government Relations.

As you can see, there are plenty of meaty topics here. In addition to the language of social values and scientific research, many authors cover aspects of sustainable business to help justify funding and research decisions. 
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Bibliography
Steinberg, Ted. 2000. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natrual Disaster in America. 2nd. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Review by Michael Beach

In this work, Ted Steinberg looks at human action increases events that count as catastrophic through increasing where we live and work. He also speaks to how our modification of geography, flora, fauna, and climate also increases the number and severity of natural disasters.

In terms of impact to human life, Steinberg shows how the poor, elderly and minorities are impacted more than those who have more means. In some examples such as specific floods, he shows how land values are higher as distance from flood zones increases. As land value increases the purchase prices grow beyond the ability of lower income home buyers and renters. In lower cost flood zones where poor people can afford to live, the increase of insurance costs means they are less likely to carry flood coverage. If all people could afford to live at higher elevations, then fewer buildings would be built in flood-prone areas and losses would be less.

Other examples are shared throughout the book where human activity adds to both the frequency and impact of largescale disasters. Crowded cities give way to faster spreading pandemics. As with pandemics, closely compacted homes built from combustible materials have made large fires engulfing whole portions of cities. Floods along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, the burning of Chicago, Hurricane Katrina, and the list goes on.

There are, of course, many ways to mitigate both the frequency and impact, but they all take two things; money and social will. At least in the case of modern construction there are improvements, but generally only where zoning rules require them for new construction or major renovation. That doesn’t protect existing structures, nor do such efforts guarantee complete survivability. These efforts still don’t address where people live based on their economic strata. In America, we are slow to want to preclude people from their freedom to live where they wish, or at least where they can afford to. There are no easy answers, and the answers we do have are partial at best. 
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Bibliography
​Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 

Review by Michael Beach
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As the title implies, James C. Scott references several national policies in different economic and political universes that claimed to seek the betterment of the people living within a given sphere of control. Then, Scott goes on to discuss some of the failures within his example state policies. His focus is on policies that are adopted from the perspective of ‘high modernism’, or in other words, highly planned and symbolic communities as opposed to those whose growth is more organic.

Scott defines high-modernism as clean, sharp, repetitious, and completely planned. For example, one can drive around a subdivision in America and every house looks the same with every yard laid out in a way that keeps the ominous HOA off the back of the homeowner. More organic cities and neighborhoods are those that are more post-modern where each is unique, and the growth seems hodge-podge and random. Scott compares public policy and the effects of high-modernist and post-modernist with various art movements that followed similar courses.

The two main examples Scott uses are the Soviet Union collectivization, compulsory villagization in Tanzania. In each case the hoped-for outcomes were less than desired. People resisted the government efforts resulting in police-state approaches. For Scott, these examples show “how routinely planners ignore the radical contingency of the future” (Scott, 1998, p. 343). One of the fallacies he points out is how in planning there is a need for “standardizing the subjects of development” (p. 345). By assuming all the people to be roughly the same then planners can create buildings, parks, roads, market areas, etc. the same. Other things need to be standardized as well such as assumptions about weather, geologic forces, external economic effects, or other social movements that are guessed to be more or less the same in the future as they have been in the past.

Scott makes a plea for what he calls ‘metis-friendly institutions’. Those institutions that are tasked with planning should be “multifunctional, plastic, diverse, and adaptable” (p. 353). The issue he has with high-modernism is its general approach at simplifying the variables it plans for. Instead of one-size-fits-all, he is advocating for more voices in the process and a willingness to let go of efficiency in the name of sameness.

Bibliography
Graham, R. (1984). Spain: A Nation Comes of Age. New York: St. Martin's Press.

​Review by Michael Beach
 
For me as a reader, this book is close to my own experience. In 1982 and 1983 I lived in southern Spain serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I just a 19-year-old, pretty much oblivious to the world of politics and economics. In particular, before being called to Spain I really had even less knowledge as events outside the United States and my own experience were limited to what I saw on the news. Spain was not in the US media at the time, at least not to my memory.

Robert Graham published this book in 1984, so just after I left the country. I really was not all that aware of what was going on with in the country or its history, even when I was there. My focus was on sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, many years later I pay much more attention to the happenings in the world. I read some on the Spanish civil war and the history of Franco. I experienced the shift in government towards a more socialist philosophy after decades of fascist dictatorship. I wish now that then I had known more about it.

Graham discusses the transition of power through several tumultuous administrations. There was at least one coup attempt. The author looks at major influences in Spain in the post-Franco transitive period. He looks at the changes in wealth distribution, the influence of banks, the church, and the various factions within the military. Graham also looks at the Spanish media and its affect on public opinion. Finally, he discusses democracy as it evolved within Spain.

Many of the influences discussed by Robert Graham are echoed in other emerging democracies. Throughout the Franco period, Spain was in some ways considered a backward society within a more enlightened Europe. At the time of Graham’s writing its economy had gone through several booms and busts, but was strongly on the mend. It was among the fastest growing economies within Europe. History has shown Spain to have suffered from some of the pangs of a growing set of social benefits. During COVID most of Europe has had similar issues, but Spain, Italy and Greece were particularly in the news as countries with a growing dependency on EU funds.
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I appreciate the insights Robert Graham shares in this book. Anyone interested in the country and how international affairs affect and are affected by Spain should consider the read.