Georgia Institute of Technology

Nanoscience has garnered billions of dollars of funding. It has been hailed by promoters as ushering in the “next industrial revolution” and dismissed by skeptics as nothing more than “hype.” And, popular media entertain us with visions of nanotechnology as cornucopia or Armageddon. Somewhere in between are social scientists, ethicists and others observing, contemplating and measuring nanoscience as a social and human endeavor in its origins, practices and consequences. The newly-released two-volume Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society, accessible and jargon-free, is the result. Edited by David H. Guston, the director of the NSF-funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University and the co-director of CSPO, this pioneering reference work covers the ethical, legal, policy, social, cultural, economic and business issues raised by nanoscience and nanotechnology.