Gender and the Race for Space: Masculinity and the American Astronaut, 1957-1983

Author:   Erinn McComb
Publisher:   Anthem Press
ISBN:  

9781839987175


Pages:   304
Publication Date:   10 June 2025
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Our Price $125.00 Quantity:  
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Gender and the Race for Space: Masculinity and the American Astronaut, 1957-1983


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Full Product Details

Author:   Erinn McComb
Publisher:   Anthem Press
Imprint:   Anthem Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.30cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.578kg
ISBN:  

9781839987175


ISBN 10:   1839987170
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   10 June 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction. “Who Can Fly?: The Astronaut in the Context of American Cold War Technology” ; Chapter 1. “Rugged Individuals and Organization Men: Establishing a Cold War Masculinity Crisis Narrative”; Chapter 2. “Light This Candle: Project Mercury Combats the Cold War Masculinity Crisis”; Chapter 3. “Flighty Women: Penetrating the Masculine Dialogue of Spaceflight, 1958-1964”; Chapter 4. “Refreshingly Human and Winning: Control and Project Gemini, 1965-1966”; Chapter 5. “It’s Hip to be Square: Project Apollo, Teamwork,Civil Rights, and the End of the Individual Astronaut, 1967-1972”; Chapter 6. “What Made it Possible for Sally to Ride?: The Shuttle’s Domestication and Democratization of Spaceflight”   

Reviews

“McComb explores the construction of a masculine U.S. astronaut image based on rugged individuali-ty, self-determination and control as a Cold War counter to Soviet collectivism, even as NASA straddled conservative and progressive understandings of gender roles by allowing women to hold traditionally male jobs as engineers, computer programmers and technicians.” — Alan D. Meyer, author of Week-end Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America (2015). “McComb sheds new light on the storied space race and its aftermath through a sharp focus on gender and astronauts. Her historical scholarship traces in vivid detail how a culture of masculinity was estab-lished within U.S. aerospace but challenged by daring women including Jerrie Cobb, Sally Ride and Ei-leen Collins.” — Jordan Bimm, University of Chicago, US “McComb offers a fresh perspective on how women were publicly accepted as members of the astro-naut corps. Accordingly, technological changes that shifted spaceflight from being viewed as a dan-gerous endeavor to a routine one markedly changed perceptions of who could participate in space-flight.” — Monique Laney, Auburn University, USA “This exhaustively researched book, prepared by an experienced space studies scholar, is likely to be received enthusiastically by historians of technology, women’s and gender studies scholars, and space history enthusiasts.” —Matthew H. Hersch, JD, PhD, Associate Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA


Author Information

Erinn McComb, PhD, is Associate Professor of History at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. She researches the intersection of gender with foreign policy, science, and technology.

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