Axel Jansen 
Alexander Dallas Bache 
Building the American Nation through Science and Education in the Nineteenth Century

Alexander Dallas Bache was the key leader of antebellum American scientists. Presuming his profession to be a herald of an integrated U.S. nation-state, Bache guided organizations such as the United States Coast Survey, then the country’s largest scientific enterprise. In this analytical biography, Axel Jansen explains Bache’s efforts to build and shape public institutions as a national foundation for a universalistic culture—efforts that culminated during the Civil War when Bache helped found the National Academy of Sciences as a symbol for the continued viability of an American nation.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

About the author

Axel Jansen, PD Dr., lehrte an den Universitäten Tübingen, Heidelberg, Frankfurt am Main und Kassel sowie an der University of California, Los Angeles; seit 2016 ist er Stellvertretender Direktor des Deutschen Historischen Instituts Washington.