Few terms have recurred so often in the work of American social welfare historians as “deserving” (or worthy) and “undeserving” (unworthy). These concepts, of course, describe criteria employed by private and government agencies to determine eligibility for social welfare assistance. A special object of concern in the literature has been their use, in particular misuse, by charity organizations and welfare agencies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The history of the U.S. space program can be rather neatly divided into two distinct periods. The first, which begins with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and runs through the end of Project Apollo in 1972, is sometimes referred to as the “golden age” of space exploration. This period was characterized not only by its impressive scientific and technical successes but also by the fact that it possessed a highly supportive social, economic, and political environment. Buoyed by fears and rumors of Soviet achievements in space, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the 1950s and 1960s usually had little trouble securing an annual budget sufficient to maintain an ambitious set of projects (both manned and unmanned) that stretched from near-earth orbit to the outer reaches of the solar system.

I have spent my professional career studying and writing about American politics. I have yet to integrate satisfactorily the antipolitical attitudes that remain so prevalent among intellectuals in our system. Perhaps I take it as a personal defeat that a lifetime of teaching and research can have so little impact. Whatever the cause, I still register astonishment upon encountering the variety and depths of disdain for the American political system within our academies. The most recent evidence of the pervasiveness of antipolitics to come to my attention is that contained in three fine studies of philanthropy and policy institutes (or “think tanks”). They are the subject of this review essay.