Paul Boyer

America's quest for the ideal self : dissent and fulfillment in the 60s and 70s

Unlike many other writers, who portray the 1960s as a time of hope, vitality, and activism and the 1970s as a period of deadening self-absorption, Peter Clecak instead offers a more optimistic reappraisal of Americas recent past. Pointing out the remarkable unities between these two decades, Clecak forcefully argues that the American experience of both the 60s and 70s can best be seen as a many-sided quest for personal fulfillment-for salvation and social justice.

A historical view of scare tactics

Like their present-day counterparts, early antinuclear activists used fear to try to inspire political action. But such appeals might have unwittingly contributed to anticommunist hysteria and the nuclear buildup.

From activism to apathy: America and the nuclear issue, 1963–1980

Like the Bulletin itself, which will mark its fortieth anniversary next year, the nuclear age has lasted long enough to begin to acquire a history. Readers will remember two recent contributions by historians: Barton J. Bernsteins “Truman and the H-bomb,” in the March 1984 Bulletin, and Allan M. Winklers “A 40-year History of Civil Defense,” in the June/July 1984 issue. On the principle that those who remain ignorant of the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them, we intend to publish more historical articles in the months and years to come.In this issue, Paul Boyer surveys and analyzes the drastic shift in the American publics concern with the nuclear issue between the Kennedy years and the advent of the Reagan Administration. During this period, he reports, most Americans seemed oblivious to what many people in earlier years, and most people now, consider the greatest danger ever to confront the nation.—The Editors

Activity of Certain Isomers of Thyroxin.

Summary Two closely related isomers of thyroxin have been tested biologically. Meta thyroxin had little if any effect upon the B.M.R. of the rat in doses up to 500 mg per kg of body weight, while ortho thyroxin was found to have an activity of 1/25 to 1/50 of that of thyroxin.

Two Centuries of Christianity in America: An Overview

While the year 2000 did not prove to be the eschatological blockbuster that some of our bolder Bible prophecy popularizers anticipated, nor the year when all our computers melted down, as some Y2K alarmists predicted, it did provoke some historians to step back from their usual topics of inquiry to attempt to sum up in a broad overview fashion some of the major developments in the century just past. A spate of books like Harvard Sitkoffs edited collection of essays, Perspectives on Modern America , with its subtitle, “Making Sense of the Twentieth Century,” were the result. In that spirit, as 2000 approached, I undertook an even more presumptuous venture: a brief overview of not one but two centuries of Christianity in America, from 1800 to the present, as a kind of outline sketch for a hypothetical book on the subject. The result is this essay. Once I had embarked on such a potentially foolhardy project, the practical question remained: What meaningful generalizations about two centuries of American Christianity could one offer in a relatively short space such as that provided by Church Historys “Perspectives” feature? Still, Cotton Mather once boasted that he had boiled down the entire plan of salvation onto a single piece of paper, so from that perspective, five thousand or so words seemed ample indeed.

Social scientists and the bomb

In the first five years after the development of the atomic bomb, social scientists proposed to take up where physicists had left off, and harness the social forces of atomic awareness to create a new society.

The Nostalgia Trap

Atomic Culture: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Scott C. Zeman and Michael A. Amundson, editors, University Press of Colorado, 2004, 200 pages;

Studies on Manganese Deficiency in the Rat

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The effect of vitamin A and certain members of the B-complex upon calf scours.

Summary Pronounced manganese deficiency in the rat has been produced by use of rats weaned without access to manganese. This deficiency resulted in definitely impaired growth in the male and the female rat. In the manganese-deficient female rat estrous cycles were irregular or absent, and there was a marked delay in the opening of the vaginal orifice. A manganese deficiency in the male rat caused testicular degeneration and complete sterility due to lack of spermatozoa production. Both male and female manganese-deficient rats were unable to reproduce. No histological abnormalities were detected in the adrenal, kidney, pituitary, and thyroid of the manganese-deficient rat. The deficiency did not result in reduced ascorbic acid content of tissues, nor did ascorbic acid stimulate the growth of the manganese-deficient rat. Synthesis of ascorbic acid from mannose by rat liver and other tissues in vitro could not be obtained with or without added manganese. A reduced arginase concentration in the liver of the manganese-deficient rat was found. There were no essential differences in the activity of the intestinal dipeptidases studied.