Rational Action: The Sciences of Policy in Britain and America, 1940-1960

Description

The evolution of a set of fields -- including operations research and systems analysis -- intended to improve policymaking and explore the nature of rational decision-making. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction I Prelude 1 A. V. Hill in World War I, and His Complaints Afterward 2 Colonel Blimp: Tradition, Authority, and the Difficulty of Progress 3 Military Heuristics and the Allied Bombing Campaigns II The Origins of the Sciences of Policy 4 L. B. C. Cunningham and the Mathematical Theory of Combat 5 Patrick Blackett and the Anti-Aircraft Command Research Group 6 Scientific Advisers and Operational Research in the British Military Services 7 “Not Yet Enough”: The British Rhetoric of Science and Its Coordination 8 Operations Research and Field Liaison, 1941–1945 III A Wartime Intellectual Economy 9 The Legitimacy of Wartime Operations Research 10 The Methods of Operations Research 11 Meta-Calculation and the Mathematics of War 12 John Williams, Edwin Paxson, and the Stop-Gap Mathematical Life 13 The B-29 Problem 14 Raisins in the Oatmeal IV The Lessons of the War 15 Operations Research without Operations 16 The Challenge of Rational Procurement 17 Wartime Operational Research in Postwar Britain 18 The Operational Research Club 19 The American Reinvention of Operations Research V Rationality and Theory 20 Theories of Decision, Allocation, and Design 21 The Anatomy of Decision: Inventory Theory 22 The Rise of Theoretical Operations Research 23 Systems Analysis: The Challenge of Rational Engineering 24 Rationality and Decision: Varieties of Theory VI The Intellectual Economy of Theory and Practice 25 The Civilianization of Operations Research on the Charles 26 West Churchman, Russell Ackoff, and the Philosophy of Decision Making 27 The Management Sciences 28 The Reformation of Systems Analysis VII Epilogue 29 Dr. Strangelove: Rationality, Authority, and Sin 30 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index