Articulating a vision of apolitical science and disseminating it globally takes a lot of effort, resources and political acumen. Freedom's Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science, by Audra J. Wolfe, draws from a wide array of sources, some of them rather spectacular, to examine the origins, goals, functioning, failures and achievements of US science diplomacy efforts coordinated and conducted by a host of US government agencies and private entities. Wolfe brings science (back) into studies of Cold War cultural diplomacy, showing how and why science beyond technology applicable to military purposes was seen as crucial for winning the Cold War. She persuasively ‘plant[s] in readers’ minds a healthy skepticism about postwar US scientists’ claims of scientific autonomy, scientific freedom, and scientific internationalism’ (p. 15), contrasting the visions of science based on rationality, objectivity and merit with what were frequently racist, sexist and anti-democratic policies and practices. While the book touches upon several topics relatively familiar to specialists, Wolfe's extensive and meticulous research results in a series of original findings and insightful observations. The introduction and nine chapters are largely chronologically ordered to the benefit of both the analytical and the narrative aspects of the book. Though Chapter 1 examines how Lysenkoism (re)shaped the understanding of the relationship between the state, politics, ideology and science, the more precise starting point is the discovery, in 1945, that, contrary to expectations, Germany was far from creating an atomic bomb, a failure that in the US was largely interpreted as a consequence of science operating under totalitarianism. The logic was soon applied to the Cold War confrontation in the form a ‘folk philosophy of science and freedom being promoted by a new class of powerful scientific administrators in the United States’ (p. 30), who called for massive government investments in science while opposing government oversight and planning. Gathering scientific intelligence abroad effectively but inconspicuously was a formidable challenge, not least because of the inter-agency rivalry between the State Department and the newly established CIA. The science attaché programme, created to gather information about science in other countries and extoll the virtues of scientific freedom abroad, clashed with anti-communism rampant in US politics, which viewed unavoidable contacts with foreign leftist scientists with inherent suspicion. Even though the initial impetus came from private individuals and organizations, each new US administration expanded a psychological-warfare programme aimed at ‘winning hearts and minds’ with the notion of scientific freedom playing an increasingly important role. Wolfe brings to light Science and Freedom, a bulletin published by the CIA-backed Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), and examines the role of science in the CCF's anti-communist crusade. Scientists such as H.J. Muller, a famously converted communist, and Michael Polanyi, who believed that ‘state planning and state oversight of science would inevitably lead to totalitarianism’ (p. 74), set the tone. The bulletin wonderfully illustrates the problems arising from outsourcing cultural diplomacy to private citizens with idées fixes and agendas of their own. The launch of sputnik damaged the US international reputation and prompted the US to increase investment in research, technology and science education (and nuclear weapons), but also intensified the commitment to scientific internationalism, according to which ‘science functioned best through open channels’ (p. 36). US science diplomacy emphasized the ‘benevolent, noncompetitive nature of US scientific research’ (p. 101) more than achievements in technology, especially because the USSR was notoriously secretive about its applied research. The difficulty of being truly neutral in the Cold War, and the tension between the roles of scientists as private individuals and de facto representatives of their states, were manifested in the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Started in 1957 and guided by the logic of scientific internationalism, the conferences served as rare opportunities for US and Soviet scientists to come together, in hope that this backchannel diplomacy could lead to the ban of nuclear tests and disarmament. Textbooks created by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) simultaneously addressed domestic and international science education concerns. Their emphasis on ‘understanding’ and the anti-dogmatic stance in science and politics alike resonated with the leadership of the Asia Foundation, ‘one of the CIA's largest proprietary organizations’ (p. 136), and the BSCS seemed to have ‘offered biologists a critical opportunity to preserve the future of democracy’ (p. 139). As Wolfe shows in some detail, the BSCS insisted on adapting its textbooks to specific needs and circumstances of foreign countries, to foster observation-based inquiry, as well as avoid being associated with US cultural imperialism. The notions of objective and apolitical science took a heavy hit in 1967 when the CCF was exposed as a CIA front. Many US scientists realized that they had been connected to the CIA unwittingly, and the discovery prompted some individuals and institutions to rethink their involvement with the federal government, a major source of funding. The fact that around the world, ‘by 1980, there was only one “science,” and it looked remarkably like the vision advanced by the West’ (p. 197), was a sign of the success of US science diplomacy. The support of the USSR for the Helsinki Accords, Wolfe argues, contributed to its undoing by raising the international profile of Soviet human rights activists. Some of the best-known Soviet dissidents, such as Andrei Sakharov, were scientists, but Wolfe warns against simplistic explanations of their prominence built on supposed democratic inclinations of scientists, for the overwhelming majority of Soviet scientists were not dissidents. The US–Soviet scientific communication intensified during the détente, making US scientists more aware of the human rights violations in the USSR and uncertain whether this exchange was bringing the two blocs closer together or legitimizing oppressive Soviet politics. In the epilogue Wolfe draws parallels between the Lysenko affair and the Trump administration, between Cold War visions of apolitical science and the 2017 March for Science, and reflects on the role of critics of scientific objectivity in cracking the door open to the socially and environmentally destructive and anti-scientific policies coming from the political right. Well contextualized, persuasively written and empirically firmly grounded, Freedom's Laboratory has already attracted the attention of diverse audiences and raised the bar for writing on Cold War science and science diplomacy.