Toby A. Appel is Historical Librarian with the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University, and research associate of the Section of History of Medicine.

• List of TablesForewordAcknowledgementsIntroduction. Envisioning a Federal Patron for Biology Chapter 1. Making a Place for Biology at the "Endless Frontier," 1945–1950Chapter 2. Fashioning a New Federal Patron for Biology, 1950–1952Chapter 3. Expanding and Experimenting in the 1950sChapter 4. Government Relations and Policy-Making in the Cold War EraChapter 5. Competing Within a Pluralist Federal Funding System, 1952–1963Chapter 6. Funding Individuals and Institutions in the 1960s: Opportunities and ConstraintsChapter 7. Promoting Big Biology: Biotrons, Boats, and National Biological LaboratoriesChapter 8. Allocating Resources to a Divided Science: The "New" and the "Old" in BiologyChapter 9. Forging New Directions After the Golden Age, 1968–1972Chapter 10. End of an Era, 1972–1975AppendixesNotesNote of NSF Primary SourcesIndex

This is one of those rare books that historians and sociologists of science will use for a very long time as a valuable resource... Toby A. Appel's is a compelling and important story, written with a sense of humor and humanity. Annals of Science Appel has done a remarkable job. No subsequent historical work on NSF and the biological sciences can begin without building on the solid foundation she provides in Shaping Biology. -- James E. Strick Science Toby Appel does a thorough, scholarly job of bringing to life... the National Science Foundation. -- James P. Collins Journal of the History of Biology This path-breaking book on the National Science Foundation (NSF) represents the first detailed empirical study of this agency in the making of 'policy' for the life sciences in the United States since 1945. -- Nicolas Rasmussen Politics by Science Based on previously unexamined archival sources, Appel's analysis is clearly presented and well documented. She provides critical policy context for NSF decisions in biology by discussing their elevance to NIH, other federal agencies, and both national and international political events. -- Victoria A. Harden Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences