Graham, Lauren

In 1955, Lauren Graham received a bachelor of science degree in chemical technology from Purdue University , and in 1964 a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University ^[3] .

For nearly fifty years, Graham has published works on the history of science and has taught at Indiana University, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of which he is currently a professor. Graham was a member of one of the first programs for the exchange of scientists between the USA and the USSR , in which he worked at Moscow State University in 1960 - 1961 . Since then, he lived and worked in Russia dozens of times, often coming several times a year. In addition to books on the history of science, he also wrote a popular book on the history of Indians A Face in the Rock and a book of memoirs Moscow Stories , where he described his youth in the United States and his adventures in Russia. Graham has always acted as a staunch supporter of respect for human rights and the development of international scientific cooperation. He was a member of the board of trustees of the Soros Foundation , an organization that provided massive financial assistance to Russian scientists immediately after the collapse of the USSR. In addition, for many years he was a member of the governing board of the Fundamental Research and Higher Education Program, which supports research and teaching at Russian universities and is funded by the MacArthur Foundation , the Carnegie Endowment , the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and other organizations. Graham is also a member of the advisory board of the American Civilian Research Foundation , which supports international scientific collaboration.

For many years he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the European University in St. Petersburg and still continues to cooperate with this university. In particular, Graham donated several thousand books from his personal library to the European University in St. Petersburg and now these books constitute a special collection bearing his name.

In his work on the history of science, Graham demonstrates the influence of the social context on science, even on its theoretical structure. For example, in the book Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union (which was even nominated for the prestigious National Book Award ), he distinguishes the influence of Marxism on Russian science - in some cases, such as Lysenkoism , he considers this influence to be harmful, and in other cases, especially in physics , psychology, and the questions of the origin of life, - useful. In his recent book The Names of Infinity (co-authored with mathematician Jean Michel Cantor ), he develops the hypothesis that religious heresies had a positive effect on the early work of representatives of the Moscow Mathematical School . Thus, Graham is not a supporter of any one ideological view of science (such as Marxism or religion), but argues that scientists are influenced by many diverse life values ​​and philosophical views. Graham discovers that sometimes this effect is transferred to mathematics itself, as shown not only in his study of the Moscow Mathematical School, but also in his article Do Mathematical Equations Express Social Attributes? (The Mathematical Intelligencer , 2000).

In addition to writings on the history of scientific theories, Graham published many works on the organization of science in the Soviet Union and Russia, including books on the first years of the USSR Academy of Sciences ( The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party ) and the situation of Russian science after the collapse of the USSR ( Science in the New Russia , co-authored with Irina Dezhina).

Graham's books are published in English, Italian , German , Russian , Spanish and Chinese .

• In 1996 - Georges Sarton medal awarded by the Society for the Study of the History of Science "for the total contribution to the study of the history of science"
• In 2000 - Michigan Historical Society Follo Award for Contributing to the Study of Michigan State History
• He is a member of the American Philosophical Society , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences .

Lauren Graham and his wife Patricia, a well-known educational historian and former dean of Harvard University , bought a lighthouse on the secluded island of Lake Superior , the largest and deepest in the Great Lakes system, many years ago. There, they spend the summer months engaging in writing, observing nature and participating as volunteers in the U.S. Coast Guard in many rescue operations for seafarers in distress. A description of the lighthouse is given on the site [1]

• Moscow in May 1963: education and cybernetics (with Oliver Caldwell), Washington, 1964
• The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party , 1927-1932, Princeton University Press , 1967
• Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union , Alfred Knopf, 1972
• Between Science and Values , Columbia University Press, 1981
• Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History , Cambridge University Press , 1981
• Functions and uses of disciplinary histories (edited with Wolf Lepenies and Peter Weingart), Reidel, 1983
• Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia, by Alexander Bogdanov (edited with Richard Stites), Indiana University Press 1984
• Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union , Columbia University Press, 1987
• Science and the Soviet Social Order (edited), Harvard University Press, 1990
• The Ghost of the Executed Engineer , Harvard University Press , 1993
• The Face in the Rock: the tale of a Grand Island Chippewa , University of California Press 1995
• What Have We Learned about Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? , Stanford University Press 1998
• Moscow Stories , Indiana University Press, 2006
• Grand Island and its Families (with Katherine Geffine Carlson) GIA, 2007
• Science in the New Russia: Crisis, Aid, Reform (with Irina Dezhina), Indiana University Press, 2008
• Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity (with Jean-Michel Kantor), Harvard University Press, 2009
• Lonely Ideas: Can Russia Compete? MIT Press , 2013
• Death at the Lighthouse: A Grand Island Riddle, Arbutus Press, 2013
• Lysenko's Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia , Harvard University Press, 2016

monographs

• Graham L. Natural Science, Philosophy, and the Science of Human Behavior in the Soviet Union = Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union / Per. with English; after V. S. Stepina , p. 424-440. - M .: Politizdat , 1991 .-- 480 p. - ISBN 5-250-00727-9 .
• Graham L. Essays on the History of Russian and Soviet Science = Science in Russia and the Soviet Union / trans. from English V. Gerovich . - M .: Janus-K, 1998 .-- 312 p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-8037-0007-X .
• Graham L. The Ghost of an Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union = The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union / per. from English A. Struchkov. - SPb. : European House , 2000 .-- 184 p. - ISBN 5-8015-0060-X .
• Graham L., Cantor J.-M. . The names of infinity. The True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity = Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity. - SPb. : Publishing House EUSP , ,, 2011. - 232 p. - ISBN 978-5-94380-114-3 .
• Graham L. Can Russia compete? A History of Innovation in Tsarist, Soviet, and Contemporary Russia = Lonely Ideas: Can Russia Compete? / per. from English Yu. Konstantinova. - M .: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber , 2014 .-- 272 p. - ISBN 978-5-91657-903-1 .

articles

• Graham L. Socio-political context of the report of B. M. Hessen On Newton // Problems of the History of Natural Science and Technology . - No. 2. - 1993. - C. 20-31.
• Graham L. Do mathematical equations have social attributes? // Science of science (inaccessible link) . - No. 4. - 2002. - S. 121-131.
• I am a pluralist ... (Our interlocutor is Professor Lauren Graham ). Foreword by S. S. Ilizarov , the conversation was led by S. S. Ilizarov with the participation of M. V. Mokrova // Problems of the History of Natural Science and Technology. - No. 1. - 2004. - S. 135—157.

• Information on the MIT website
• Biography on the Davis Institute website of Harvard University
• Prokofiev D. “Lonely Ideas” by Professor Graham, or The Most Interesting at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum // Zvezda , 2016, No. 8.