Pseudoscience Wars

Michael D. Gordin is professor of history at Princeton University and the author of a number of books, including Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly.

"A slyly funny writer.... Make no mistake: Michael D. Gordin's sympathies are not with the occult. His fascination with pseudoscience is more like a negative method: the experts define the boundaries of their domain by fending off the quacks. For Gordin, pseudoscience is an instrument by which he takes the temperature of the past.... The Pseudoscience Wars is a relatively slim volume, but Gordin siphons into it an overwhelming amount of information." (New Republic) "Those who are interested in how bad ideas start, how they diffuse, how they covet and resist confrontation, and how they wax and wane in popularity over time will find much food for thought in this gripping book." (Science) "Scholarly and highly readable.... Michael D. Gordin's historical analysis of pseudoscience remains disturbingly relevant." (Nature)"