The Imagineers of War

2018-02-20 History

Author : Sharon Weinberger
Release : 2018-02-20
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 721/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Imagineers of War by : Sharon Weinberger

Download or read book The Imagineers of War written by Sharon Weinberger. This book was released on 2018-02-20. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly sixty years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency’s original mission was to create “the unimagined weapons of the future.” Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology. Sharon Weinberger gives us a riveting account of DARPA’s successes and failures, its remarkable innovations, and its wild-eyed schemes. We see how the threat of nuclear Armageddon sparked investment in computer networking, leading to the Internet, as well as to a proposal to power a missile-destroying particle beam by draining the Great Lakes. We learn how DARPA was responsible during the Vietnam War for both Agent Orange and the development of the world’s first armed drones, and how after 9/11 the agency sparked a national controversy over surveillance with its data-mining research. And we see how DARPA’s success with self-driving cars was followed by disappointing contributions to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Weinberger has interviewed more than one hundred former Pentagon officials and scientists involved in DARPA’s projects—many of whom have never spoken publicly about their work with the agency—and pored over countless declassified records from archives around the country, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and exclusive materials provided by sources. The Imagineers of War is a compelling and groundbreaking history in which science, technology, and politics collide.

America's War Machine

2015-10-27 Political Science

Author : James McCartney
Release : 2015-10-27
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 762/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis America's War Machine by : James McCartney

Download or read book America's War Machine written by James McCartney. This book was released on 2015-10-27. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A veteran Washington reporter reveals how years of military-slanted domestic and foreign policy have turned the U.S. into a perpetual war machine. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower prepared to leave the White House in 1961, he did so with an ominous message for the American people about the "disastrous rise" of the military-industrial complex. Fifty years later, the complex has morphed into a virtually unstoppable war machine, one that dictates U.S. economic and foreign policy in a direct and substantial way. Based on his experiences as an award-winning Washington-based reporter covering national security, James McCartney presents a compelling history, from the Cold War to present day that shows that the problem is far worse and far more wide-reaching than anything Eisenhower could have imagined. Big Military has become "too big to fail" and has grown to envelope the nation's political, cultural and intellectual institutions. These centers of power and influence, including the now-complicit White House and Congress, have a vested interest in preparing and waging unnecessary wars. The authors persuasively argue that not one foreign intervention in the past 50 years has made us or the world safer. With additions by Molly Sinclair McCartney, a fellow journalist with 30 years of experience, America's War Machine provides the context for today's national security state and explains what can be done about it.

Last Reflections on a War

2000 United States

Author : Bernard B. Fall
Release : 2000
Genre : United States
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 040/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Last Reflections on a War by : Bernard B. Fall

Download or read book Last Reflections on a War written by Bernard B. Fall. This book was released on 2000. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bernard B Fall was 40 years old when he was killed by a booby trap in northern South Vietnam on February 21, 1967. By the time of his death he had already authored seven books on Vietnam. This book, first published shortly after Dr Fall's death, is a tribute to his life's work. It contains the only known autobiographical account of his life, several previously unpublished articles, notes for 'Street Without Joy Revisited', and transcripts of Dr Fall's tape recordings, including his last recorded words.

The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

2020-01-09 Technology & Engineering

Author : William Boone Bonvillian
Release : 2020-01-09
Genre : Technology & Engineering
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 943/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency by : William Boone Bonvillian

Download or read book The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency written by William Boone Bonvillian. This book was released on 2020-01-09. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors have done a masterful job of charting the important story of DARPA, one of the key catalysts of technological innovation in US recent history. By plotting the development, achievements and structure of the leading world agency of this kind, this book stimulates new thinking in the field of technological innovation with bearing on how to respond to climate change, pandemics, cyber security and other global problems of our time. The DARPA Model provides a useful guide for governmental agency and policy leaders, and for anybody interested in the role of governments in technological innovation. —Dr. Kent Hughes, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars This volume contains a remarkable collection of extremely insightful articles on the world’s most successful advanced technology agency. Drafted by the leading US experts on DARPA, it provides a variety of perspectives that in turn benefit from being presented together in a comprehensive volume. It reviews DARPA’s unique role in the U.S. innovation system, as well as the challenges DARPA and its clones face today. As the American model is being considered for adoption by a number of countries worldwide, this book makes a welcome and timely contribution to the policy dialogue on the role played by governments in stimulating technological innovation. — Prof. Charles Wessner, Georgetown University The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Other parts of the U.S. Government and some foreign governments have tried to apply the ‘DARPA model’ to help develop valuable new technologies. But how and why has DARPA succeeded? Which features of its operation and environment contribute to this success? And what lessons does its experience offer for other U.S. agencies and other governments that want to develop and demonstrate their own ‘transformative technologies’? This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.

Germs

2012-02-01 History

Author : Judith Miller
Release : 2012-02-01
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 154/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Germs by : Judith Miller

Download or read book Germs written by Judith Miller. This book was released on 2012-02-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “engrossing, well-documented, and highly readable” (San Francisco Chronicle) New York Times bestseller, three veteran reporters draw on top sources inside and outside the U.S. government to reveal Washington's secret strategies for combating germ warfare and the deadly threat of biological and chemical weapons. Today Americans have begun to grapple with two difficult truths: that there is no terrorist threat more horrifying—and less understood—than germ warfare, and that it would take very little to mount a devastating attack on American soil. Featuring an inside look at how germ warfare has been waged throughout history and what form its future might take (and in whose hands), Germs reads like a gripping detective story told by fascinating key figures: American and Soviet medical specialists who once made germ weapons but now fight their spread, FBI agents who track Islamic radicals, the Iraqis who built Saddam Hussein's secret arsenal, spies who travel the world collecting lethal microbes, and scientists who see ominous developments on the horizon. With clear scientific explanations and harrowing insights, Germs is a vivid, masterfully written—and timely—work of investigative journalism.

Popular eBooks

The Imagineers of War

America's War Machine

Last Reflections on a War

The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Germs

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