This book, which draws on a series of lectures by the author in the BBVA Foundation, explores the relations between science and scientists and political power. In doing so, it focuses on four leaders who changed the course of history not just in the countries they governed but in the entire world: Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Dwight David Eisenhower. The author provides extensive historical documentation and commentary on the relations they maintained with science and scientists.

Ciencia, política y poder visits places and eras, including post-revolutionary France, the two world wars and the Cold War, which saw the emergence of notable scientists like Bohr, Monge, Berthollet, Laplace, Fourier, Volta, Haber, Lenard, Stark, Einstein, Heisenberg, von Braun, Hahn, Meitner, Pavlov, Kapitza, Landau, Sakharov, Kurchatov, Szilard, Oppenheimer, Rabi, Wigner and Teller, among others.

A thought-provoking read for anyone curious about its subject, this book also has much to offer historians and experts in the history of science and technology, as an insightful study into the real power of science and how science can come to serve power.