Ken Alder

Science and Technology; France

Office: 306S Harris
Phone: 847-491-7260
E-mail: k-aldernorthwestern.edu

Ken Alder (Ph.D., Harvard, 1991) studies the history of science and technology in the context of social and political change. His first book, Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815, appeared in 1997 and won the Dexter Prize from the Society of the History of Technology. His second book, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World, appeared in 2002. It won the Davis Prize from the History of Science Society, the Dingle Prize of the British Society for the History of Science, was co-winner of the Kagan Prize for European history from The Historical Society, and has been translated into 12 languages. His most recent work, The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession, was published in March 2007, and is slated for translation into Japanese. For his current project, a comparative study of the relationship between science and the law in France and America from the seventeenth century to the present, he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the American Bar Foundation. He also serves on the editorial board of Technology & Culture and the executive councils of the History of Science Society and the Society for the History of Technology.

At Northwestern he directs the program in Science in Human Culture, at: http://www.shc.northwestern.edu.

His professional website address is: http://www.kenalder.com.

Curriculum Vitae