Overview
In Scientists or Spies, Roberta Delson explores the intersection of three historical tropes: World War I, Science, and Pan Americanism, from the period leading up to and through the end of the War (1910-1919). During this time the boundary between science and politics rapidly dissolved in the United States and world-wide. Using this observation as a starting point, the book examines in depth the specific role played by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the elision of science with politics. It reveals how the Museum’s staff scientists gathered intelligence during wartime in the Latin American nations in which they had previously conducted natural history research. The book is divided into eleven chapters which trace the growing involvement of the AMNH and its scientists in Latin American politics. The first five chapters of the book highlight the role of AMNH President Henry Fairfield Osborn in focusing on the evolutionary history of mammals in Latin America from the 1890s onward and then supporting the intelligence-gathering activities of his staff there as a way to continue fieldwork activity in wartime. This part of the book also documents the contemporaneous rise of “scientific Pan-Americanism” and the importance of the Second Pan American Scientific Congress of 1915. Chapters VI through X present case studies dealing with the specific experiences of scientists such as ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, ichthyologist Charles Eastman and archaeologist Herbert Spinden, among others, who operated as government intelligence agents in Latin America during World War I. The last chapter evaluates the results of the Museum’s short-lived experiment in permitting science to purposely overlap with politics and considers the implications of the Museum’s scientific involvement in Latin America. The book ends in the 1920s when AMNH research in Latin America was severely cut back in favor of expeditions to Asia, and the political involvement of the institution was curtailed.
Full Product Details
Author: Roberta Marx Delson
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Imprint: Springer Nature Switzerland AG
ISBN: 9783032181169
ISBN 10: 303218116
Pages: 247
Publication Date: 29 May 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Availability: Not yet available
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Author Information
Roberta Marx Delson (1945--2025) was a historian of Brazil, Latin America, the Caribbean, urbanism and the interface between science and politics. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University for a study of urban planning in colonial Brazil, published in English in 1979 and in Portuguese in 1998. Among her later publications were papers on Brazilian town planning and its visual record, landscape conservation, the textile industry and indigenous dress, as well as broader works on 19th century sugar production, ethnicity and migration of global textile workers and an edited volume of documents concerning Caribbean history and economics. She taught history at Rutgers University—Newark, Princeton University, the U. S. Merchant Marine Academy and Drew University.
