| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Shaping Biology: The National Science Foundation and American Biological Research, 1945–1975. By Toby A. Appel. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xiv, 393 pp. $42.50, ISBN 0-8018-6321-X.)

In this monograph, Toby A. Appel traces the history of the Division of Biological and Medical Sciences (BMS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) from its establishment in 1952 until its elimination in 1975, describing the many programs initiated by BMS during its lifetime and the character of BMS administration. 1

The prior establishment of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) meant that when NSF was founded in 1950 it was forced to restrict its funding of biological science primarily to research far removed from medical applications. And while BMS provided ongoing support to molecular biology (an area of substantial NIH investment), the agency probably had greater influence in shaping systematic biology and ecology. For these fields, NSF was a lead patron. In the case of the former, BMS funding climbed from $2.6 million in 1959 to $5.6 million in 1967, providing support for maintaining biological collections in museums and botanical gardens and encouraging experimentation with new forms of taxonomic analysis. In ecology, among other things, BMS patronage encouraged computer modeling. . . .

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