Really fascinating book that came out in the late 1970s, about the interaction between science and the political world. It's a product of its time, of course, with the bulk of the book being four contemporary case studies, but it's also indicative of a trend which, I'm sorry to say, has not seen any real change. Anyone looking at the climate denial of today, for instance, can hardly fail to see the efforts of corporations and states to discredit and get around science. The more things change...

The most effective of the case studies, and by far the most riveting, had to do with the case of the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant, and how the geological instability of the ground it was built on was variously covered up and dismissed by both the corporation building the thing, and the government regulatory body responsible for atomic safety... largely because the political drive to increase power sources (and profits) was given priority. All the case studies, it should be said, are American, and the book also has a useful introduction that provides context for the place of science in American society and politics at that point, as well as a conclusion looking at possible political sources of conflict and solution. Though it should be pointed out that not all of Ames' chapters are of business and government steamrolling science; her case study on the advent of recombinant DNA research makes it quite clear that in some cases it's scientists doing the steering, and not always with an eye to wider concerns. Anyway, the whole thing is just very readable, and very interesting.