2014 Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize recognizes history of science books accessible to a general audience.
The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future has been awarded the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize from the History of Science Society. It recognizes the best book for “a general audience” which “promotes the public understanding of science.”
The Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize, named in honor of the long time director of Science Service and his wife, was established in 1985 through a long-term pledge from Miles and Audrey Davis.
The HSS Prize Committee, in selecting McCray’s book, wrote: “One lesson of McCray’s book is that nothing ages so quickly as the future…[This book is] “deeply researched, written in lucid prose, and deftly weaving together science, technology, business, politics, and popular culture…showing how the past and future are always embroiled with the present.”
For additional information, see this UCSB press release.
hm 11/10/14, 11/18