CV – Paul Rubinson

Paul Rubinson
Department of History
Bridgewater State University
131 Summer St.
Bridgewater, MA 02325

Current Position

Professor of History, Department of History, Bridgewater State University

Education

Ph.D., U.S. History, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin (2008)
MA, U.S. History, University of Texas at Austin (2002)
BA, with honors, American Studies, Vanderbilt University (1999)

Publications

Books:

American Scientists and Human Rights from the Early Republic to the Cold War (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in April 2027)

Rethinking the American Antinuclear Movement (Routledge, 2018).

Redefining Science: Scientists, the National Security State, and Nuclear Weapons in Cold War America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016).

Peer-reviewed Articles and Contributions to Edited Volumes:

“What Would Sakharov Say? The Struggle over the Conscience of Humanity,” Journal of Russian-American Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (November 2024), 79–95.

“Mistress of the Sciences, Asylum of Liberty: Joseph Priestley, Human Rights, and Science in the Early U.S. Republic,” Isis, Vol. 112, No. 3 (September 2021), 484–506.

“American Scientists in ‘Communist Conclaves’: Pugwash and Anti-communism in the United States,” in Alison Kraft and Carola Sachse, eds., Science, (Anti-)Communism, and Diplomacy: The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in the Early Cold War (Brill, 2019).

“Imagining the Apocalypse: Nuclear Winter in Science and the World,” in Matthew Grant and Benjamin Ziemann, eds., Understanding the Imaginary War: Culture, Though, and Nuclear Conflict, 1945–1990 (Manchester University Press, 2016), 238–59.

“Sakharov’s Dilemma: Pursuing Nuclear Disarmament during the Human Rights Revolution,” Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences, Vol. 20, No. 2 (April 2016), 110–37.

“The Global Effects of Nuclear Winter: Science and Antinuclear Protest in the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1980s,” Cold War History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (February 2014), 47–69.

“U.S. Scientists and the Cold War,” in Artemy Kalinovsky and Craig Daigle, eds., Routledge Handbook of the Cold War (Routledge, 2014), 249–58.

“‘For Our Soviet Colleagues’: Scientific Internationalism, Human Rights, and the Cold War,” in Petra Goedde, William Hitchcock, and Akira Iriye, eds., The Human Rights Revolution: An International History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 245–64.

“‘Crucified on a Cross of Atoms’: Scientists, Politics, and the Test Ban,” in Diplomatic History, Vol. 35, No. 2 (April 2011), 313–49.

Encyclopedia Articles and Miscellaneous:

“The Helsinki Accords Turned Fifty. How Should We Celebrate?” in The Bridgewater Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, November 2025.

“Nuclear Disarmament and Domestic Politics,” in Christopher Dietrich, ed., A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020).

“Scientists as Peace Activists, 1975 to 1991,” in William Knoblauch and Christian Peterson, eds., The Routledge History of World Peace since 1784 (Routledge, 2018).

“Resisting Doomsday,” op-ed, OUPblog, April 2018.

“Hans Bethe,” “Council for a Livable World,” “Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists,” “Bernard Feld,” “Nuclear Freeze Campaign,” “Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” “Linus Pauling,” “Pugwash Conferences,” and “Leo Szilard,” in Mitchell Hall, ed., Opposition to War: An Encyclopedia of United States Peace and Antiwar Movements (ABC-Clio, 2018).

“Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty,” in Gordon Martel, ed., Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Diplomacy (Wiley Blackwell, 2018).

“Nuclear Weapons,” in Edward Blum, ed., America in the World, 1776 to the Present: A Supplement to the Dictionary of American History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2016), 772–74.

“The American Antinuclear Movement,” in Jon Butler, ed., The Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History(Oxford University Press, 2016).

“Lyndon B. Johnson,” in Nancy Beck Young, ed., The Encyclopedia of the U.S. Presidency (Facts on File, 2013).

“The Role of a Charismatic Leader in Protest and Revolution,” “Poverty and Inequality as Factors Leading to Protest and Revolution,” “Stages and Struggles Leading to Protest and Revolution,” “External Factors and Foreign Intervention as Causes of and Factors in Revolutions,” “Antinuclear Protest,” and “Radical Environmental Protest,” essays for Immanuel Ness, ed., The International Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution: 1500 to the Present(Blackwell Publishing, 2009).

“J. Robert Oppenheimer” and “Edward Teller,” entries for Ruud van Dijk, ed., Encyclopedia of the Cold War (MTM Publishing/ Routledge, 2008).

“Ku Klux Klan,” “Antinuclear Movement,” “Civil Rights Movement, 1910–1929,” and “Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1970,” entries for Immanuel Ness, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Social Movements (M.E. Sharpe Reference, 2004).

“Tom Hayden,” “Interstate Highway Act of 1956,” and “House Un-American Activities Committee,” entries for Allan Winkler, ed., Encyclopedia of American History, 1945–1974 (Facts on File, 2001).

Book Reviews:

Review of Alyssa S. McClanahan, Zimmer: The Movement that Defeated a Nuclear Power Plant, forthcoming in Technology and Culture.

Review of Benjamin Wilson, Strange Stability: How Cold War Scientists Set Out to Control the Arms Race and Ended Up Serving the Military-Industrial Complex, forthcoming in the Journal of Military History.

Review of Rebecca K. Wright, Moral Energy in America: From the Progressive Era to the Atomic Bomb, forthcoming in the American Historical Review.

Review of Meredith L. Roman, The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements, in European History Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2026, 145–46.

Review of Frank N. von Hippel, Ending the Nuclear Arms Race: A Physicist’s Quest, in Peace & Change, Vol. 50, No. 4, October 2025, 389–391.

Review of Lindsay Goss, F*ck the Army! How Soldiers and Civilians Shaped the G.I. Movement to End the Vietnam War, for H-Diplo, April 2025.

Review of Casey A. Huegel, Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory: Grassroots Activism and Nuclear Waste in the Midwest, for H-Diplo, January 2025.

Review of Akihiro Ogawa, Antinuclear Citizens: Sustainability Policy and Grassroots Activism in Post-Fukushima Japan, for H-Environment, March 2024.

Review of Stephanie Freeman, Dreams for a Decade: International Nuclear Abolitionism and the End of the Cold War, in Peace & Change, Vol. 49, No. 2, April 2024, 163–65.

Review of Sarah E. Robey, Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State, in History: Reviews of New Books, Vol. 51, No. 2, 2023, 39–41.

Review of Jacob Darwin Hamblin, The Wretched Atom: America’s Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology, in The American Historical Review, Vol. 128, No. 3, September 2023, 1455–56.

Review of Eric D. Weitz, A World Divided: The Global Struggle for Human Rights in the Age of Nation-States, in The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 95, No. 1, March 2023, 173–74.

Review of Alex Wellerstein, Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, in The Journal of American History, Vol. 109, Issue 3, December 2022, 712.

Review of Henry Richard Maar III, Freeze! The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War, in Peace & Change, Vol. 47, Issue 3, July 2022, 292–94.

Review of Christopher Gainor, The Bomb and America’s Missile Age, in The Journal of American History, Vol. 108, No. 1, June 2021, 198.

Review of Toshihiro Higuchi, Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis, in Peace & Change, Vol. 46, No. 1, January 2021, 98–100.

Review of JPat Brown, B.C.D. Lipton, and Michael Morisy, eds., Scientists under Surveillance: The FBI Files, in Isis, Vol. 111, No. 2, June 2020, 434–35.

Review of Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, The Power of Systems: How Policy Sciences Opened Up the Cold War World, for H-Diplo, January 18, 2019.

Review of Siegfried Hecker, ed., Doomed to Cooperate: How American and Russian Scientists Joined Forces to Avert Some of the Greatest Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers, in Technology & Culture, Vol. 59, No. 1, January 2018, 187–88.

Review of Mark Hurst, British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985, in European History Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4, 2017, 749–50.

Review of Scott Kaufman, Project Plowshare: The Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosives in Cold War America, in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 2, June 2017, 399–400.

Review of Kyle Harvey, American Anti-Nuclear Activism, 1975–1990: The Challenge of Peace, in Peace & Change, Vol. 42, No. 2, April 2017, 304–06.

Review of Frank Close, Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy, for H-War listserv, September 11, 2016.

Review of Sarah Bridger, Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research, in The Canadian Journal of History, Vol. 50, No. 2, Autumn 2016, 396–98.

Review of Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life in the Center, in Physics Today, Vol. 66, No. 10, October 2013, 55–57.

Review of Amy Foster, Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps: Politics and Logistics at NASA, 1972–2004, in The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 4, Spring 2014, 793–95.

Review of Gail E.S. Yoshitani, Reagan on War: A Reappraisal of the Weinberger Doctrine, 1980–1984, in the Journal of Military History, Vol. 76, No. 3, July 2012, 930–32.

Review of Allan McDonald and James Hansen, Truth, Lies, and O-rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, in the Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 4, Spring 2010, 574–77.

Review of Mark Harvey, Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act, for Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 97 No. 2, Spring 2006.

Review of Thomas P. Lowry, Venereal Disease and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, for Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 97 No. 1, Winter 2005/ 2006.

Review of Hugh Gusterson, People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex, for H-Peace (peace studies list-serv), July 2005 (also appeared on H-Diplo and H-Sci-Med-Tech).

Conferences, Talks, and Colloquia

Invited Talks:

“Science and Human Rights: A History,” at Science, Technology, and Society Lunch Seminar, Tufts University, October 6, 2023.

“A Europe Free of Nuclear Weapons: Transnational Antinuclear Activism and the End of the Cold War,” Webinar, part of NOWALL: Europe and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, March 22, 2021 (virtual).

“Universities and the Arms Race,” at “Pentagon Midwest: Military Research and the Making of the University of Michigan,” University of Michigan LSA Bicentennial Theme Semester, March 20, 2017.

“The Threat to Scientific Internationalism: Détente, Nuclear Disarmament, and Human Rights,” at the Princeton University Science and Global Security Seminar Series, October 5, 2016.

“From the Guillotine to the Gulag: A Brief History of Science and Human Rights,” at the University of Houston Downtown Social Science Lecture Series, February 20, 2014.

“From Disarmament to Human Rights (and Back Again): American Scientists and the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s,” at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of History, Technology, and Society Fall 2012 Speakers Series, November 5, 2012.

Conference Presentations:

Roundtable: “Sources Beyond the Archive,” at the 2026 History of Science Society/ European Society for the History of Science Joint Meeting, Edinburgh, UK, July 12–16, 2026.

“Educating 500-Million Chinese People about the Holocaust: American Jews and Zionism, 1975–1985,” at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Columbus, OH, June 25–27, 2026.

“The Final Act at Fifty: Scientific Cooperation and Human Rights from Helsinki to Ukraine,” at the 2025 Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Washington, DC, November 20–23, 2025.

“The Americanization of English Science: Natural Philosophy and the Founding of the United States,” at the Eleventh Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Barcelona, Spain, September 4–7, 2024.

“The Pursuit of Scientific Justice: Vladimir Ipatieff and the U.S.-Soviet Rivalry of the 1930s,” at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Toronto, ON, June 13–15, 2024.

Chair for “Cold War Antinuclear Protest in Word and Deed,” at the 2023 Conference of the Peace History Society, Gwynned Valley, PA, October 26–28, 2023.

“Remaking Race: Thomas Cooper and the Transformation of Science in the Antebellum United States,” at the 2023 Annual Conference of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association, Sacramento, CA, March 30–April 1, 2023.

“From Human Rights to Owning Humans: The Life and Science of Thomas Cooper,” at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science, Atlanta, GA, March 10–12, 2022.

“Mistress of the Sciences, Asylum of Liberty: Scientific Refugees, Human Rights, and Freedom from the 1790s to the 1970s,” at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society, Utrecht, the Netherlands, July 24–26, 2019.

“Mistress of the Sciences, Asylum of Liberty: Scientific Refugees, Human Rights, and Freedom in the Early U.S. Republic,” at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Crystal City, VA, June 20–22, 2019.

“The Threat to Scientific Internationalism: Détente, Nuclear Disarmament, and Human Rights,” at the 2017 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Baltimore, MD, February 22–25, 2017.

“American Scientists in ‘Communist Conclaves’: Pugwash and Anticommunism in the United States,” at the 2016 Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Prague, Czech Republic, September 22–24, 2016.

“Sakharov’s Dilemma: Pursuing Nuclear Disarmament during the Human Rights Revolution,” at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, San Diego, CA, June 23–25, 2016.

“Leading in Nonproliferation, Trailing in Arms Control: Nuclear Weapons and Science in the Johnson Years,” at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Organization of American Historians, Providence, RI, April 7–10, 2016.

“Speaking for the Earth: Nuclear Winter, Scientists, and the Public in the 1980s,” at the 2015 Annual Conference of the American Society for Environmental History, Washington, DC, March 18–22, 2015.

Commentator for “Apocalyptic Anxieties and Antinuclear Protests in the Eighties,” at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Lexington, KY, June 19–21, 2014.

Roundtable: “Science across Borders,” at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Atlanta, GA, April 10–13, 2014.

Chair for “Environments, Urban Places, and Outer Spaces,” at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History, University of California, Irvine, November 1–3, 2013.

Moderator for “The United States and the World: Intellectual Histories of American Foreign Relations,” Plenary Session at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History, Irvine, CA, November 1–3, 2013.

Roundtable: “The Test Ban Treaty 50 Years On: New Perspectives on Nuclear Arms Control and the Cold War,” at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Arlington, VA, June 20–22, 2013.

“‘The Improvement of the Conditions of Human Life’: Human Rights and U.S.-Soviet Scientific Cooperation,” at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society, San Diego, CA, November 15–18, 2012.

“The Limits of the Scientific Community: Human Rights, Scientists, and the Third World in the 1970s and 1980s,” at the 2012 Annual Conference of the American Historical Association, Chicago, IL, January 5-8, 2012.

“A Scientific Apocalypse: Politics, Objectivity, and the Narrative of Nuclear Winter,” at the 2011 Annual Conference of the U.S. Intellectual History Society, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY, November 17–18, 2011.

Commentator for “Negotiating from Weakness: Grassroots Activists, Nongovernmental Organizations, and U.S. Power During the Cold War,” at the 2011 Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Hilton Mark Center, Alexandria, VA, June 23–25, 2011.

“The Science of Diplomacy: The United States, the French Revolution, and Scientific Internationalism,” at Memory and US Foreign Relations, Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin, 8-10 April 2011.

“‘The Nuclear Winter Phenomenon’: Antinuclear Protest and Human Rights in the United States and Soviet Union,” at Unthinking the Imaginary War: Intellectual Reflections of the Nuclear Age, 1945–1990, Conference at the German Historical Institute, London, UK, November 4–6, 2010.

“‘For Our Soviet Colleagues’: Scientific Internationalism, Human Rights, and the Cold War,” at the 2009 Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Fairview Park Marriot, Falls Church, VA, June 25–27, 2009.

Commentator for “New Perspectives on Nuclear Arms and the Cold War,” panel at the 2009 Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Fairview Park Marriot, Falls Church, VA, June 25–27, 2009.

“From Mars to the Gulag: Nuclear Winter, Science, and Human Rights,” at the 2009 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Marriot Marquis, New York, NY, February 15–18, 2009.

Commentator for David Kinkela, “‘Accentuate the Positive’: Defending the Global War on Insects in a Silent Spring World,” Workshop Series, University of Texas Institute for Historical Studies, November 10, 2008.

“‘An Elaborate Way of Committing National Suicide’: Carl Sagan, Popularization, and Nuclear Winter,” at the 2008 Annual Conference of the History of Science Society, Omni William Penn, Pittsburgh, PA, November 7–9, 2008.

“‘An Elaborate Way of Committing National Suicide’: Carl Sagan, Popularization, and Nuclear Winter,” at the University of Texas History of Science Colloquium, October 17, 2008.

“‘Scientists Wearing the Cloak of Science’: Activists, Expertise, and the Nuclear Arms Race during the Cold War,” at International Security Studies Colloquium in International History and Security, Yale University, February 5, 2008.

“‘An Emotional Grassroots Offensive’: Religion, Science, and the Arms Race in the 1980s,” at Peace Movements in the Cold War and Beyond: An International Conference at the London School of Economics, London, UK, January 31–February 1, 2008.

“‘Scientists Wearing the Cloak of Science’: Activism, Objectivity, and Nuclear Weapons, 1954-1963,” at the 2007 Annual Conference of the History of Science Society, Marriot Crystal Gateway, Arlington, VA, November 1–4, 2007.

“Activism or Appeasement? Linus Pauling, Edward Teller, and the Battle for Cold War Science,” at the 2007 Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Westfield Marriot, Chantilly, VA, June 21–23, 2007.

“Activism or Appeasement? Linus Pauling, Edward Teller, and the Battle for Cold War Science,” at Mephistos 25: A Graduate Student Conference in the History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Medicine. University of California at Los Angeles, April 6–8, 2007.

“‘Gross Defects’ and ‘Beneficial’ Radiation: American Scientists Confront Nuclear Weapons, 1950–1963,” at Scientists and Social Commitment Conference: Historical Perspectives on the Philosophical, Religious, and Political Ideas and Activity of Scientists. Organized by the British Society for the History of Science at The Science Museum, London, UK, 15–17 September 2006.

“From Thermonuclear to Antinuclear: Scientists and the Test Ban, 1957–1963,” at the 2005 Annual Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, College Park, MD, June 23–25, 2005.

“To ‘Sail Before the Wind of Time’: Scientists and the Transnational Disarmament Movement, 1963–1983,” at “The Atlantic Community Unraveling? States, Protest Movements, and the Transformation of U.S.–European Relations, 1969–1983,” convened by Vanderbilt University and the German Historical Institute, Nashville, TN, September 17–19, 2004.

“Atomic Activists: Scientists in the Antinuclear Movement,” Conference of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association, Albuquerque, NM, March 8, 2001.

Organization:

Member, Conference Committee for 2013 Annual Meeting of the U.S. Intellectual History Society. University of California, Irvine, November 1–3, 2013.

Co-chair of Organizing Committee for Mephistos 2008: An International Graduate Student Conference in the History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Medicine. University of Texas at Austin, April 4–6, 2008.

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

Research:

2024 2024–2025 Presidential Fellow, Bridgewater State University: Full year for writing and research

2023 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Travel Grant, Bridgewater State University

2022 Othmer Library of Chemical History Travel Grant, Science History Institute, Philadelphia, PA

2019 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Summer Grant, Bridgewater State University

2019 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Travel Grant, Bridgewater State University

2018 Class of 1950 Distinguished Faculty Research Award, Bridgewater State University

2016 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Small Grant, Bridgewater State University

2015 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Faculty/ Librarian Research Grant, Bridgewater State University

2015 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Travel Grant, Bridgewater State University

2014 Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Travel Grant, Bridgewater State University

2013 Selected as participant for Bridgewater State University Summer Writing Institute, August 19–23, 2013

2013 Selected as participant for the SHAFR Summer Institute on Nuclear History, Woodrow Wilson Center, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, June 14–19, 2013

2012 Center for the Advancement of Research and Teaching Travel Grant, Bridgewater State University

2007–08 International Security Studies, Yale University, Smith-Richardson Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship: Full year of funding for writing of dissertation.

2007–08 University of Texas Continuing Fellowship: Full year of funding administered by the Graduate School (declined).

2006 University of Texas Professional Development Travel Grant.

2006 Butler-Eyles Travel Grant, British Society for the History of Science.

2005 Grant-in-Aid, American Institute of Physics.

2005 University of Texas Professional Development Travel Grant.

2005 Dora Bonham Travel Grant, Department of History, University of Texas.

2003 Dora Bonham Travel Grant, Department of History, University of Texas.

2001 Dora Bonham Travel Grant, Department of History, University of Texas.

Teaching:

2024 Recipient, Curt C. and Else Silberman Follow-up Fellowship, Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

2023 Selected for Curt C. and Else Silberman Faculty Seminar, “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching about Holocaust Violence,” Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

2017 Nominee, Honors Outstanding Faculty Award, Bridgewater State University

2016 Nominee, Honors Outstanding Faculty Award, Bridgewater State University

2014 Panhellenic Faculty Appreciation, Bridgewater State University

2008 Commendation from University of Texas Services for Students with Disabilities