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Science and Technology in War (Military History)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Science, technology, and warfare exist in a nexus of dependencies and possibilities. Science may be defined as organized knowledge; technology, as applied knowledge; and warfare, as organized violence. But warfare generates chaos, leading to unpredictability, uncertainty, and even irrationality. The rationality associated with science and technology rests uneasily with the chaos of war. That said, as long as humans have fought, they have sought advantages in speed, firepower, protection, reach, and similar qualities amenable to enhancements by rational methods of science and engineering. Some of history’s best minds––Archimedes of Syracuse, Leonardo da Vinci, J. Robert Oppenheimer––devoted much of their lives working as military engineers or scientists. The challenge is to situate science, technology, warfare and its practitioners into broader historical and social contexts, thereby revealing linkages to political structures, economic concerns, logistical and material considerations, and moral beliefs and constraints.
  4.  
  5. Seminal Studies
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  7. Eight studies pointed the way for sophisticated analysis of science, technology, and warfare. They have become classics in the field. Mumford 1934 highlights the intrusion of military imperatives and values on technological change, a critique the author develops further in Mumford 1967–1970. Holley 1953 illustrates the importance of doctrine to the development and effectiveness of weapons in war; Morison 1966 shows how commitments to preexisting modes of training and fighting may discourage technical innovation. Nef 1968 and Kranzberg and Pursell 1967 provide context on the economic and technical factors driving changes in weaponry and warfare in the industrial age. Cipolla 1988 and Smith 1977 are model case studies of groundbreaking developments in a Western way of war that drew strength from its cannon-bearing oceangoing vessels and its ability to mass-produce firearms for its foot soldiers. White 1962 shows how the marriage of comparatively simple technology (stirrups) within a complex social structure (feudal Europe) can have astonishing impact and staying power.
  8.  
  9. Cipolla, Carlo M. Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700. Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1988.
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  11. Classic study that highlights cannon-laden galleons as Europe’s weapon of power projection in the early modern period. Concludes that non-Western peoples had to adopt or adapt to Western technology or be subjugated. Whichever path they chose led to a loss of indigenous cultural and intellectual diversity vis-à-vis “the West.” Originally published in 1966 (New York: Pantheon).
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  13. Holley, I. B., Jr. Ideas and Weapons: Exploitation of the Aerial Weapon by the United States during World War I; A Study in the Relationship of Technological Advance, Military Doctrine, and the Development of Weapons. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953.
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  15. Privileges doctrine as defining “the scope and potential capabilities” of weapons systems and its foundational role in shaping which weapons will be selected for development. Doctrine defines roles and responsibilities, but more importantly it shapes what is considered to be desirable or even possible.
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  17. Kranzberg, Melvin, and Carroll W. Pursell Jr., eds. Technology in Western Civilization. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.
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  19. Standard reference source in the history of technology; see in particular Thomas A. Palmer’s chapter on “Military Technology” in Volume 1, and Edward L. Katzenbach Jr.’s article on “The Mechanization of War, 1880–1919” in Volume 2.
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  21. Morison, Elting E. Men, Machines, and Modern Times. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966.
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  23. Especially strong on bureaucratic resistance to technological change and the way in which change creates uncertainty and thus resistance within tradition-minded military circles.
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  25. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934.
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  27. Classic statement on the interconnectivity of technology with civilization and culture, by the doyen of the field. “In short,” says Mumford, “the partnership between the soldier, the miner, the technician, and the scientist is an ancient one.” Filled with provocative insights, for example, weapons and machines as “a means of creating a dehumanized response in the enemy or victim,” a facilitator of estrangement as well as of death. Essential.
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  29. Mumford, Lewis. The Myth of the Machine. 2 vols. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967–1970.
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  31. Irascible, at times brilliant, critique of technology and its dehumanizing qualities; each volume concludes with an annotated bibliography whose pithy assessments are often spot on and always entertaining. Volume 1, Technics and Human Development; Volume 2, The Pentagon of Power.
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  33. Nef, John U. War and Human Progress: An Essay on the Rise of Industrial Civilization. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968.
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  35. Classic statement of the interconnectivity of war with the industrial revolution, commerce, and capitalism. Comprehensive and erudite. Originally published in 1950 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
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  37. Smith, Merritt Roe. Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977.
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  39. Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize in 1978, a model study of arms manufacturing in antebellum America that addresses “The American System” of manufacturing (interchangeable parts and mechanization), as well as workers’ reactions (and resistance) to the same. Based on deep archival research.
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  41. White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
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  43. Groundbreaking work that highlighted the role of stirrups in the ascendancy of knights as an arm of shock and decision in feudal Europe. Criticized, undeservedly so, for its apparent technological determinism.
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  45. General Overviews
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  47. In claiming that “Tools, or weapons, if only the right ones can be discovered, form 99 percent of victory” in war, Fuller 1946 throws down the gauntlet. Van Creveld 1989 largely agrees, baldly stating “war is completely permeated by technology and [is] governed by it.” Other historians have highlighted the vital importance of the tools of war, without embracing Fuller’s and Van Creveld’s tendency toward determinism. O’Connell 1989 suggests we are what we fight with: that the tools of war are inseparable from, even derived from, human biological and predatory imperatives. In highlighting humanity’s early status as prey to large cats and other predators, Ehrenreich 1997 provides a counterpoint. A sophisticated study, McNeill 1982 treats war technology as inseparable from and constitutive of larger social and economic patterns, including the development of military-industrial complexes and military-driven command economies. Boot 2006 covers the period from 1500, with an emphasis on rational methods as integral to the rise of Western hegemony. Dupuy 1980 and Brodie and Brodie 1973 offer sweeping surveys from antiquity to the 20th century; they are notable for their straightforward focus on weapons, battlefield tactics, and results.
  48.  
  49. Boot, Max. War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today. New York: Gotham Books, 2006.
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  51. Privileges the Western experience and written with polemical intent (in this case, to convince Americans that new military technology has produced a revolution in military affairs that should and must be exploited).
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  53. Brodie, Bernard, and Fawn M. Brodie. From Crossbow to H-Bomb: The Evolution of the Weapons and Tactics of Warfare. Rev. and enl. ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.
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  55. Somewhat dated but still useful survey of weapons and their impact on warfare and society; accessible but lacking in sophistication.
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  57. Dupuy, Trevor N. The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare. Indianapolis, IN, and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980.
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  59. Standard account by a military man that explores the dynamic between tactics and technology.
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  61. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997.
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  63. Stimulating discussion of war’s human dimensions that includes a chapter titled “Guns and the Democratization of Glory.”
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  65. Fuller, J. F. C. Armaments and History: A Study of the Influence of Armament on History from the Dawn of Classical Warfare to the Second World War. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1946.
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  67. Classic account by the famous tank proponent of World War I that stresses the decisive impact of technology on war.
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  69. McNeill, William H. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
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  71. Original and sophisticated account notable for its coverage of non-Western societies and its emphasis on economic and social imperatives; despite the title, includes a stimulating discussion of warfare and technology in antiquity. Essential reading.
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  73. O’Connell, Robert. Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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  75. Provocative and detailed study that sees weaponry in cultural terms, specifically as manifestations of intraspecific predation and display. Essential reading.
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  77. Van Creveld, Martin. Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present. New York: Free Press, 1989.
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  79. Brash and original study; sometimes contradictory, as when the author claims technology governs war, only to claim later that war is not an exercise in technology but rather a contest between two belligerents; essential reading.
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  81. Anthologies
  82.  
  83. The anthology format facilitates varying and often complementary interpretations on almost every aspect of the subject. Since the Western way of war privileges technology, most anthologies focus on this dynamic, including Haycock and Neilson 1988; Lynn 1990; Mendelsohn, et al. 1988; and Reynolds and Cutcliffe 1997, but a notable exception is Parry and Yapp 1975, which focuses on the Middle East. Chiabotti 1996 and Goldman and Eliason 2003 provide sophisticated case studies of how technology influences the military, and also how the military influences technology. Smith 1985 tackles the country that has embraced technology the most since World War II: the United States.
  84.  
  85. Chiabotti, Stephen D., ed. Tooling for War: Military Transformation in the Industrial Age. Papers originally presented at the Sixteenth Military History Symposium, held at the United States Air Force Academy, 21–23 September 1994. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1996.
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  87. Sophisticated study of technical transformation in artillery, rocketry, naval gunfire, air war, and ground combat in World War I. Notable for a searching and seminal keynote address by William H. McNeill titled “The Structure of Military-Technical Transformation.”
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  89. Goldman, Emily O., and Leslie C. Eliason, eds. The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  91. Case studies drawn from the 19th and 20th centuries on technological diffusion and its impact on military doctrine, tactics, and organization; technology as a driver for “revolutions in military affairs” is a special focus.
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  93. Haycock, Ronald, and Keith Neilson, eds. Men, Machines, and War. Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1988.
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  95. Focuses on British and Prussian experiences with industrial-age weaponry; strong tactical flavor. Chapters on air and naval warfare complement a primary focus on infantry and artillery weapons and tactics.
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  97. Lynn, John A., ed. Tools of War: Instruments, Ideas, and Institutions of Warfare, 1445–1871. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
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  99. Stimulating collection that privileges intellectual and social factors; includes discussions of army growth, the “military revolution” of the early modern period, and the interaction of weapons and ideas in the Prussian military experience.
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  101. Mendelsohn, Everett, Merritt Roe Smith, and Peter Weingart, eds. Science, Technology, and the Military. 2 vols. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, and Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1988.
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  103. Especially strong on the process of military research and development in institutional settings.
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  105. Parry, Vernon J., and Malcolm E. Yapp, eds. War, Technology and Society in the Middle East. Papers presented at an international conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
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  107. Sweeping collection of scholarly articles on Middle Eastern modes and methods of warfare; includes coverage of Byzantium, the Crusades, and the Ottoman Empire as well as Greece and the Crimea.
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  109. Reynolds, Terry S., and Stephen H. Cutcliffe, eds. Technology & the West: A Historical Anthology from Technology & Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
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  111. Useful compendium that includes articles on catapults, crossbows, muskets, maritime weaponry, military technology in China and Japan, and the production of warplanes during World War II, culled from the pages of the journal Technology and Culture.
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  113. Smith, Merritt Roe, ed. Military Experience and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985.
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  115. Focuses on US industrial development under military imperatives and prerogatives; illustrates capital-intensive manufacturing and privileging performance and command vis-à-vis reliability and cost. Includes a useful bibliographic essay by Alex Roland.
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  117. Bibliographical Essays and Sources
  118.  
  119. A range of bibliographical resources aid the student of science, technology, and war. The stellar works of Roland (Roland 1993, Roland 1995, Roland 2001) provide a comprehensive introduction to state-of-the-art works in this area, but also Hacker 1994 on the “new” history of military technology, which is much more sensitive to sociocultural concerns and contexts. Specialized bibliographies are available in various subjects, including Oleson 1986 on Greek and Roman technologies and Pisano and Lewis 1988 on air and space history. Hacker and Vining 2006 is a solid primer on the American experience, with Fitzsimons 1977 providing nuts-and-bolts data with plenty of illustrations.
  120.  
  121. Fitzsimons, Bernard, ed. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare. 24 vols. New York: Columbia House, 1977.
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  123. Well-illustrated compendium of basic data on the weapons that drove the world wars of the 20th century.
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  125. Hacker, Barton C. “Military Institutions, Weapons, and Social Change: Toward a New History of Military Technology.” Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 768–834.
  126. DOI: 10.2307/3106506Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  127. Indispensable guide to the “new” military history and how it has stimulated new studies on, and research into, the technology-warfare dynamic.
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  129. Hacker, Barton C., and Margaret Vining. American Military Technology: The Life Story of a Technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.
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  131. A primer on how the US military came to embrace technology as drivers (even determinants) of victory, not always for sound military reasons.
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  133. Oleson, John Peter. Bronze Age, Greek, and Roman Technology: A Select, Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1986.
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  135. A sound starting point for explorations of ancient military technologies.
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  137. Pisano, Dominick A., and Cathleen S. Lewis, eds. Air and Space History: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1988.
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  139. No military branch is more reliant on technology than the world’s air forces, which makes this volume indispensable.
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  141. Roland, Alex. “Technology and War: The Historiographical Revolution of the 1980s.” Technology and Culture 34 (1993): 117–134.
  142. DOI: 10.2307/3106459Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  143. Outstanding introduction to the subject, by the doyen of the field.
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  145. Roland, Alex. “Science, Technology, and War.” Technology and Culture 36.2 (1995): S83–S99.
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  147. Essential starting point for any scholar interested in this subject.
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  149. Roland, Alex. The Military-Industrial Complex. Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 2001.
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  151. Clear and compelling primer marking the fortieth anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning in 1961 of an emerging “military-industrial complex” in the United States and its undue influence, “whether sought or unsought.”
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  153. Journals
  154.  
  155. Three journals stand out as sources for significant information on science, technology, and warfare. Technology and Culture is the flagship journal of the Society for the History of Technology (known as SHOT and founded in 1958). The Journal of Military History is the flagship for the Society for Military History (SMH) and regularly includes specialized essays addressing the subject. MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History is aimed at a more popular audience but includes articles on weaponry and warfare, vetted by experts.
  156.  
  157. Journal of Military History.
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  159. Published quarterly by the George C. Marshall Foundation and the Virginia Military Institute; the most prestigious journal for scholars of military history.
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  161. MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History.
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  163. Published by the Weider History Group. Well-edited, well-illustrated articles written by scholars for a popular audience. Its series “Arms and Men” consists of sharply written articles on various technologies of war (mines, chariots, tanks, the Norden bombsight, and many others).
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  165. Technology and Culture.
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  167. Published quarterly by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Sophisticated articles and book reviews that explore the technology-society dynamic.
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  169. Ancient War
  170.  
  171. Less governed by machines than modern war, ancient warfare nevertheless witnessed the transition from the Bronze to Iron Ages and from the chariot to infantry combat, as well as the building of fortifications and machines designed to reduce fortifications. Cotterell 2004 and Drews 1993 focus on the chariot age; Ducrey 1985 and Hanson 1989 focus on the rise of shield-bearing, spear-wielding, armor-wearing infantry in Greece; and Webster 1985 does the same for Rome. Marsden 1969–1971 shows how advanced Greek and Roman artillery was; weaponry throughout this period is addressed in Oakeshott 1994. Providing a searching introduction to warfare, tactics, and techniques is Ferrill 1985.
  172.  
  173. Cotterell, Arthur. Chariot: The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine. London: Pimlico, 2004.
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  175. Intriguing study of horse-driven chariots in the ancient world and their marriage of firepower, speed, and protection.
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  177. Drews, Robert. The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
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  179. Argues that the end of chariot warfare and the Bronze Age coincided with the arrival of infantry units of individual warriors wielding iron weapons. Persuasive and highly original.
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  181. Ducrey, Pierre. Warfare in Ancient Greece. Translated by Janet Lloyd. New York: Schocken, 1985.
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  183. Uses a wealth of primary source material to show how the Greeks fought and why. Includes section on naval warfare and fortification, as well as in-depth treatments of infantry combat and armor.
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  185. Ferrill, Arther. The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.
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  187. Comprehensive survey of ancient warfare that connects tactics to technology; insightful and readable.
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  189. Hanson, Victor Davis. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. New York: Knopf, 1989.
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  191. Sensitive and persuasive study that connects Greek battle techniques and tactics to Greek culture and agriculture.
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  193. Marsden, E. W. Greek and Roman Artillery. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969–1971.
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  195. Standard reference source on pre-gunpowder artillery. Volume 1, Historical Development; Volume 2, Technical Treatises.
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  197. Oakeshott, R. Ewart. The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armor from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1994.
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  199. Exactly what its title says. Accessible and jargon free. Originally published in 1960 (New York: Praeger).
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  201. Webster, Graham. The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D. 3d ed. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1985.
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  203. Clear, detailed, and authoritative study of the Roman army that includes frontier systems, fortifications, armor and weaponry, and tactics. Unsurpassed for the layman.
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  205. Middle Ages and Renaissance
  206.  
  207. The Middle Ages witnessed the dominance of siege warfare even as aristocratic cavalry forces (the famed armored knights) dominated the rarer pitched battles in the field. Contamine 1984 and DeVries 1992 are outstanding introductions to warfare in general and technology specifically, respectively; Brown, et al. 1980 explores castles in all their roles; Edge and Paddock 1996 and Karcheski 1995 well illustrate the deadly beauty and purpose of medieval weaponry and armor; Payne-Gallwey 1981 tells you everything you need to know about the crossbow; and Hall 1997 and Steele and Dorland 2005 detail the end of castles and knights during the Renaissance, as the age of gunpowder took hold.
  208.  
  209. Brown, R. Allen, Michael Prestwich, and Charles Coulson. Castles: A History and Guide. Poole, UK: Blandford, 1980.
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  211. Perhaps the best introduction to the medieval castle in all its roles: as fortress and residence, in defense and attack, as seat of power and locus of community. Includes a gazetteer of castle locations throughout western Europe.
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  213. Contamine, Philippe. War in the Middle Ages. Translated by Michael Jones. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984.
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  215. Best one-volume introduction to medieval warfare in all its dimensions. Published in France as La guerre au Moyen Âge (Paris: F. Nathan, 1980).
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  217. DeVries, Kelly. Medieval Military Technology. Lewiston, NY: Broadview, 1992.
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  219. The best introduction to the field, by a noted historian and expert on medieval arms and armor.
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  221. Edge, David, and John Miles Paddock. Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight: An Illustrated History of Weaponry in the Middle Ages. London: Saturn, 1996.
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  223. As the authors say, this is intended “as a fresh presentation of current knowledge about the armor and weapons of the Mediaeval Knight.” Marked by clear prose and a well-chosen array of photographs of weapons, armor, tapestries, paintings, and related nonprint sources.
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  225. Hall, Bert S. Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
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  227. Original and stimulating study of the demise of traditional knights and castles at the hands of pistol-wielding light cavalry and heavy shot-firing cannon, respectively.
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  229. Karcheski, Walter J., Jr. Arms and Armor in the Art Institute of Chicago. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
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  231. Military technology of the Middle Ages was as much about aesthetics and pageantry as it was about functionality in battle. Suits of armor and weapons were objects of art and symbols of virtue and martial prowess, facts well illustrated by this book.
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  233. Payne-Gallwey, Ralph W. F. The Crossbow, Mediaeval and Modern, Military and Sporting: Its Construction, History, and Management, with a Treatise on the Balista and Catapult of the Ancient World. London: Holland Press, 1981.
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  235. Standard reference on the medieval crossbow and its evolution in the Middle Ages and beyond. Originally published in 1903 (London: Longmans, Green).
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  237. Steele, Brett D., and Tamera Dorland, eds. The Heirs of Archimedes: Science and the Art of War through the Age of Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
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  239. Essential to understanding the late Middle Ages and Renaissance under the pressures of the gunpowder revolution.
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  241. Early Modern Period
  242.  
  243. In this preindustrial age of gunpowder, a new system of fortification, known as trace italienne (the Italian style), replaced castles. Historians debate whether these “star forts” led to larger armies; historians also debate whether a “military revolution” took place, and, if it did, exactly when it transpired. Black 1991 and Rogers 1995 provide an introduction to this debate, Parker 1988 extends the debate to non-Western armies and naval forces, and Pepper and Adams 1986 is a compelling case study of the effectiveness (and expense) of trace italienne fortresses. Lund 1999 shows that generals both cared and knew more about science and technology than heretofore acknowledged; Alder 1997 and Langins 2004 show how Enlightenment values of rationality were increasingly applied to weaponry and war. Finally, Perrin 1979 shows there was nothing inevitable about muskets and gunpowder prevailing over earlier ways, especially if elites had much to lose, and the geographical luxury to return to older ways in a society that valued tradition over change.
  244.  
  245. Alder, Ken. Engineering the Revolution: Arms & Enlightenment in France, 1763–1815. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
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  247. French attempts to rationalize production, for example, the standardization of artillery, quality control, and interchangeability of parts, provided a flexible machine of war that needed only an expert operator––and he (Napoleon) came.
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  249. Black, Jeremy M. A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800. London: Macmillan, 1991.
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  251. Succinct and fair-minded critique of a technologically driven “military revolution” in early modern warfare.
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  253. Langins, Janis. Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.
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  255. The French military engineer Vauban created a system of fortresses and techniques for besieging them that dominated discourse on war in the 18th century––a discourse that was as beguilingly rational as it was beastly in its deadliness.
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  257. Lund, Erik A. War for the Every Day: Generals, Knowledge, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe, 1680–1740. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999.
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  259. Shows how and why generals were interested in science and technology, in the context of managing land and wealth as well as winning victories in the field.
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  261. Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
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  263. Masterful work of synthesis that is sympathetic to the idea of a military revolution.
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  265. Pepper, Simon, and Nicholas Adams. Firearms and Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
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  267. Superb case study that shows how trace italienne fortifications made states safer militarily but less secure financially.
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  269. Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543–1879. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1979.
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  271. Groundbreaking study that explores Japan’s brief infatuation with muskets, followed by a rejection of firearms that was motivated by social concerns and the protection of samurai skills and privileges.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Rogers, Clifford J., ed. The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Transformation of Early Modern Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.
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  275. A primer on the military revolution debate and its technical constituents and components.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Industrial War
  278.  
  279. The Industrial Revolution changed warfare forever. Railroads revolutionized logistics; the telegraph revolutionized communication; developments in infantry weapons (the use of long-throw, low-velocity, percussion-cap, rifled muskets in the US Civil War, followed later by breechloading rifles firing brass cartridges) increased reach and killing power; and the development of machine guns, artillery shells, even barbed wire set the stage for the killing fields of World War I. Armstrong 1982 and Ellis 1986 cover the machine gun, and Turner 1953 covers railroads and how they affected the US Civil War, whereas Showalter 1975 addresses railroads and rifles in the context of German unification. Brose 2001 carries the German story forward to World War I, whereas Strachan 1985 focuses on British adaptation up to the Crimean War. Finally, Herrmann 1996 and Stevenson 1996 focus on how industrialization facilitated mass armies as well as arms races that made war more likely rather than less likely.
  280.  
  281. Armstrong, David A. Bullets and Bureaucrats: The Machine Gun and the United States Army, 1861–1916. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982.
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  283. Case study in the difficulty of integrating new technology into conservative bureaucratic structures limited by financial and staff constraints.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Brose, Eric Dorn. The Kaiser’s Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870–1918. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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  287. Best overview in any language of the German army’s internal dynamics, stressing the institution’s adaptability to technological developments from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.
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  291. Classic study of the machine gun’s impact on warfare and society, including criminal activity in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Provocative in its depiction of the mass production of death; an excellent supplementary text for undergraduate courses. Originally published in 1976.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Herrmann, David. The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
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  295. Demonstrates the course and consequences of an industrialized arms race that drastically accelerated after the turn of the century. Accessible to undergraduates.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Showalter, Dennis E. Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1975.
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  299. Seminal and incisive study that links the unification of Germany to a Prussian general staff system that came to embrace the utility of railroads and rifles as “force multipliers.”
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Stevenson, David. Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904–1914. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.
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  303. Perceptive account of Europe’s arms race, which led to increased tensions without altering relative positions. Stresses the synergy among politics, economics, and security.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Strachan, Hew. From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology, and the British Army, 1815–1854. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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  307. Astute and penetrating survey of how the new weaponry of the early industrial age influenced tactics in the British army.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Turner, George Edgar. Victory Rode the Rails: The Strategic Place of the Railroads in the Civil War. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
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  311. Still the best introduction to how railroads revolutionized warfare in the American Civil War.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Imperialism
  314.  
  315. In 1800, European countries controlled one-third of the world’s land surface; by 1876 it was two-thirds, and by 1914 it was 84 percent. Europe sliced and diced Africa, India, China, and other areas of the world, primarily because they could, and the reason they could was because of new technologies of conquest, control, and consolidation. Adas 1989 shows how Europeans equated technological prowess with racial superiority; Adas 2006 extends this analysis to American imperialism. Headrick (Headrick 1981, Headrick 1988, and Headrick 2010) set the standard for tracing technology as an enabler to imperialism and Western hegemony, Bailes 1980 and Kubicek 1990 treat the British experience, and Ralston 1990 shows how non-Western powers attempted to adapt to European technologies and ways of war while preserving (not always successfully) the unique qualities of their own cultures.
  316.  
  317. Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
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  319. Shows how Westerners came to view their superior technology as evidence of racial and cultural superiority vis-à-vis peoples lacking industrial-age machinery of war.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Adas, Michael. Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
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  323. Discusses how technology enabled Manifest Destiny in the United States, and later, overseas empire and “global reach, global power.”
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Bailes, Howard. “Technology and Imperialism: A Case Study of the Victorian Army in Africa.” Victorian Studies 24 (1980): 82–104.
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  327. Argues that Britain’s Victorian army was an effective imperial force that worked to improve its small arms, artillery, and ancillary equipment in the context of emerging “small wars” doctrine.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Headrick, Daniel R. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
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  331. Shows how Europeans came to dominate 84 percent of the world’s land area through the application of technology in three stages: penetration, conquest, consolidation. Essential reading, appropriate for undergraduates.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Headrick, Daniel R. The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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  335. Suggests that the transfer of Western technology contributed to the underdevelopment of Asian and African economies, highlighting the cultural contingency of technology as a one-size-fits-all solution.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Headrick, Daniel R. Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
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  339. Establishes the central role of technology, military technology in particular, and its accompanying mentality in the success of imperialism. Reader friendly in argument and presentation.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Kubicek, Robert V. “The Design of Shallow-Draft Steamers for the British Empire, 1868–1906.” Technology and Culture 31 (1990): 427–450.
  342. DOI: 10.2307/3106054Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. Examines the numerous ways the British employed shallow-draft steamers, not only to project power, but for missionary and administrative purposes (e.g., customs duties) as well as for patrolling and policing, with an emphasis on Sir Edward J. Reed’s naval designs.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Ralston, David B. Importing the European Army: The Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions in the Extra-European World, 1600–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. The reaction of the non-Western world to the technologies and tactics of European nations.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. World War I
  350.  
  351. The first fully industrialized war fought by European powers, World War I was a devastating experience, killing more than 9 million soldiers and leaving millions more wounded physically and/or mentally. Trench warfare characterized the Western Front from late 1914 to the summer of 1918; the stalemate created by defensive technologies (machine guns, artillery, and rapid logistical resupply and reinforcement aided by railroads and the internal combustion engine) stimulated a search for new offensive technologies to break that stalemate, such as poison gas (Palazzo 2000, Russell 2001, Tucker 2006), the tank (Wright 2000), and combinations of old (artillery) with new (tanks and airplanes), as shown in Johnson 1994. Nothing worked quite as planned, leading to new theories of war (Bidwell and Graham 1982) about how best to cross the killing ground (Travers 1987), efforts that enlisted science (Hartcup 1988) firmly into the ranks of the military.
  352.  
  353. Bidwell, Shelford, and Dominick Graham. Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War, 1904–1945. London: Allen and Unwin, 1982.
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  355. Marks Britain’s transition from an offensive-minded, cavalry-oriented army to a more firepower-intensive and balanced approach in response to industrialized war and its storm of steel.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Hartcup, Guy. The War of Invention: Scientific Development, 1914–18. London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1988.
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  359. Examines the attempt to mobilize science in the cause of war: to rally the rational to meet the irrational; outright successes were few.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Johnson, Hubert C. Breakthrough! Tactics, Technology, and the Search for Victory on the Western Front in World War I. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994.
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  363. Clear-eyed summary of tactical-technical attempts to break through enemy defenses.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Palazzo, Albert. Seeking Victory on the Western Front: The British Army and Chemical Warfare in World War I. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
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  367. Original discussion of how Britain’s army adapted to a weapon that was contrary to its ethos and identity. Stimulating.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Russell, Edmund. War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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  371. Highly original account that focuses on chemical warfare’s impact not only on soldiers but on nature; explodes the myth of controlling insects by making war on them.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Travers, Tim. The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900–1918. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
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  375. Plumbs the depths of Britain’s struggle with industrialized war and its implications for traditional closing tactics consistent with heroic ideals.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Tucker, Jonathan B. War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda. New York: Pantheon, 2006.
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  379. Treats chemical weapons in World War I but focuses more on the war’s aftermath and especially on the development of chemical weapons and stockpiles during the Cold War.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Wright, Patrick. Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine. New York: Viking, 2000.
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  383. Well-informed and entertaining account of the development of tanks in the 20th century. Especially strong on World War I and the Israeli experience in the 1960s and 1970s.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. World War II
  386.  
  387. If World War I was the chemist’s war, World War II was the physicist’s war. Besides the Manhattan Project (discussed in the next section), which led to the atomic bomb, World War II witnessed radar, as shown in Fisher 1989, and coordinated efforts in scientific intelligence in which free countries (Jones 1978) had the advantage over countries that forced scientists to conform to fascist (Beyerchen 1981) or communist (Graham 1993) ideologies. Key to military success was the creation of a climate in which technical innovation was tied to military effectiveness (Murray and Millett 1999). The proximity fuse for artillery shells (Baldwin 1980) and the V-2 rocket (Petersen 2009) made their mark near the end of the war, in 1944 and 1945. Other key new technologies included penicillin, the insecticide DDT, and early computers for decoding and other purposes (Copeland 2006). These developments (and the “big science” of the Manhattan Project) shaped the Cold War to come.
  388.  
  389. Baldwin, Ralph B. The Deadly Fuze: The Secret Weapon of World War II. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1980.
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  391. Shows how the US military’s development of proximity fuses greatly increased the lethality of air and ground artillery barrages.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Beyerchen, Alan. Scientists under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981.
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  395. Reveals how scientific integrity was sacrificed on the altar of Nazi ideological purity, having the unintended benefit of aiding the Allied war effort against Germany.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Copeland, B. Jack. Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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  399. Authoritative study of early computational efforts to break Germany’s complex Enigma cipher, which led to the development of computers such as Colossus and (in the United States) ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer).
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Fisher, David E. A Race on the Edge of Time: Radar—The Decisive Weapon of World War II. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
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  403. Explores the development and importance of radar, from a British perspective.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Graham, Loren R. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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  407. Although not specifically focused on World War II, Graham provides the best concise survey of the science-ideology-state dynamic in Russia and the Soviet Union in the 20th century.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Jones, Reginald V. The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence, 1939–1945. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978.
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  411. Comprehensive if triumphalist study of the British scientific community’s contribution to the Allied victory in World War II.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett, eds. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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  415. The best survey of protagonist countries’ attempts in the 1920s and 1930s to prepare their respective militaries for yet another industrialized war of mass killing.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Petersen, Michael B. Missiles for the Fatherland: Peenemünde, National Socialism, and the V-2 Missile. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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  419. Detailed and disturbing portrayal of science and engineering co-opted in the service of Nazism, including the often-deadly use of slave labor, all for “vengeance” or terror rockets with no hope of altering the course of the war.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. The Atomic Age
  422.  
  423. The “shock and awe” of the Manhattan Project and of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 inaugurated a new atomic age. The dynamic duo of America’s effort was scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Bird and Sherwin 2005) and military man Leslie Groves (Groves 1962). Their close relationship mirrored the scientific-military marriage involving billions of dollars and tens of thousands of operatives that became a common feature of so-called “Big Science,” as revealed so brilliantly in Rhodes 1986 (a shorter version is Hughes 2002). New weapons of unprecedented power required new thinking about war, as in Brodie 1965 and Kahn 1960. Fermi and Samra 1995 and Stoff, et al. 1991 provide photographic and documentary evidence of the birth of a harrowing age of atomic destruction.
  424.  
  425. Bird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York: Knopf, 2005.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Model biography of Oppenheimer, both as “the father of the atomic bomb” and as a man who failed in his attempts to control nuclear proliferation.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Brodie, Bernard. Strategy in the Missile Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
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  431. Thoughtful critique of the technological mania for more and better nuclear weapons as creating an “almost intolerable mutual menace,” which is of course what transpired between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War policy of “Mutual Assured Destruction” (better known by its acronym of MAD). Originally published in 1959.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Fermi, Rachel, and Esther Samra. Picturing the Bomb: Photographs from the Secret World of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. Eye-opening compilation of photographs related to the Manhattan Project; especially valuable in illustrating the sheer scale of the effort, as well as its ad hoc nature.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Groves, Leslie R. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Classic account by the general who built the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Hughes, Jeff. The Manhattan Project: Big Science and the Atom Bomb. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
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  443. Concise introduction to the issues of “big science” in the 20th century; undergraduate level.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Kahn, Herman. On Thermonuclear War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.
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  447. Sophisticated attempt to “think about the unthinkable”: the possibilities and strategies of nuclear war.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. The best one-volume study of the Manhattan Project; winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Stoff, Michael B., Jonathan F. Fanton, and R. Hal Williams. The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.
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  455. Consolidates primary-source material related to the development of, and decision to use, the atomic bomb. Suited for undergraduates.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. The American Postwar Experience
  458.  
  459. Since World War II, no country has invested more money and resources into science, technology, and war than the United States. This is partly due to the Cold War, in which Americans saw technical “quality” as a counterpoint to Soviet “quantity,” and partly due to an American belief in technology as being inherently progressive and good, as well as in playing to perceived strengths in “Yankee ingenuity” (as well as the influence of the military-industrial complex in perpetuating spending on research and weaponry, of which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned America in his farewell address in 1961). Bush 1949 suggests that mobilizing science is concomitant to preserving democracy; Leslie 1993 suggests that neither science nor the military necessarily prospers from their collaboration; Moore 2008 showcases scientists’ skepticism toward, even resistance to, military agendas. Problems developing “next generation” weaponry are outlined in Augustine 1986, Coulam 1977, and Fallows 1981. Innovation within military contexts is especially demanding, as shown in Evangelista 1988 and Mackenzie 1990.
  460.  
  461. Augustine, Norman R. Augustine’s Laws. New York: Viking, 1986.
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  463. Irreverent, humorous, and insightful look at the military-technology dynamic, from a former CEO in the US aerospace and defense industry.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Bush, Vannevar. Modern Arms and Free Men: A Discussion of the Role of Science in Preserving Democracy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949.
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  467. Classic account of the linkages among science, technology, and warfare, both in support of and retrograde to democracy, by the man who oversaw the Manhattan Project.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Coulam, Robert F. Illusions of Choice: The F-111 and the Problem of Weapons Acquisition Reform. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.
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  471. Illustrates the failure of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his “Whiz Kids” in developing a fighter jet suitable for the US Air Force and Navy; the F-111 suited neither service.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Evangelista, Matthew. Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. Rare comparative approach to weapons development that contrasts US corporate-driven models to the command economy approach of the Soviet Union.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Fallows, James. National Defense. New York: Random House, 1981.
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  479. Especially strong in its critique of the US defense establishment’s reliance on high technology to provide decision in battle; compelling case studies of the M-16 rifle and F-16 jet fighter remain relevant.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Leslie, Stuart W. The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. Well-researched and nuanced study by a noted historian of technology that debunks the myth that the military-industrial complex was a source of strength for academe.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Mackenzie, Donald A. Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Model study that applies the social construction of knowledge to the development of greater missile accuracy and its impact on nuclear strategy.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Moore, Kelly. Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945–1975. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
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  491. Case studies in American scientists’ opposition to weapons and the militarization of science; strong on scientists’ moral objections but weak on military contexts and concerns.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. The Computer Age
  494.  
  495. The arrival of the computer age in World War II and the related development of the transistor and miniaturization have profoundly affected warfare. Developments in electronics and electronic warfare led the way, as shown in Devereux 1991 and Price 2006. Computers were seen as crucial to air defense during the Cold War, as shown in Hughes 1998 and Redmond and Smith 2000. Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites led to revolution in precision, as shown in Rip and Hasik 2002 and Gillespie 2006. Singer 2009 shows how robotics is revolutionizing 21st-century warfare, especially in developing drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) such as the US Predator and Reaper. Mahnken 2008 provides an overview to it all from an insider’s perspective.
  496.  
  497. Devereux, Tony. Messenger Gods of Battle: Radio, Radar, Sonar: The Story of Electronics in War. London: Brassey’s, 1991.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Solid introduction to new ways of communicating, seeing, sensing, and listening in war.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Gillespie, Paul G. Weapons of Choice: The Development of Precision Guided Munitions. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006.
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  503. Highlights the development of smart weapons as a “revolution in military affairs”; written by a US Air Force officer who knows his stuff.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Hughes, Thomas P. Rescuing Prometheus: Four Monumental Projects That Changed the Modern World. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
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  507. Includes case studies on MIT and SAGE as well as ARPANET, the forerunner to the Internet. Filled with insights into possibilities and perils of systems building and control.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Mahnken, Thomas G. Technology and the American Way of War since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
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  511. Focuses on the technology-society dynamic in America, from an insider’s perspective (the author served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for policy planning at the Pentagon).
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Price, Alfred. Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare, 1939–1945. London: Greenhill, 2006.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. Focuses on electronic-warfare measures and countermeasures during Britain’s aerial bombing campaign in World War II, enlivened with interviews with participants.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Redmond, Kent C., and Thomas M. Smith. From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. Detailed account of the development of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment air defense system in the 1950s, which led to MITRE being formed, a federally funded research and development center that continues to advise the US military.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Rip, Michael Russell, and James M. Hasik. The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002.
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  523. Outstanding survey of the implications of the Global Positioning System on precision targeting and weapons deployment, and the implications for tactics in future wars.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Singer, P. W. Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. New York: Penguin, 2009.
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  527. Accessible study that embraces robotics as the future of warfare; quite popular among denizens of the Pentagon and within the Washington beltway.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. War at Sea
  530.  
  531. Sea warfare is often as much a battle with the elements as it is with the enemy. Dangerous seas, iffy weather, sudden fogs, the challenges of navigation and logistical supply: all of these, and more, make sea warfare dependent on technology and science. Coates and Morrison 1986 shows the possibilities of ancient, wooden, oar-powered ships; Guilmartin 1974 shows the remarkable longevity of galleys in the comparatively sheltered waters of the Mediterranean, even as this longevity was curtailed by gunpowder. Rodger 1986 takes us to the age of sail and galleons; Roland 1978 takes us underwater in the age of sail. Mindell 2000 shows the transition from sail to steam was not easy, Brodie 1941 provides the technical details of this transition, and McBride 2000 shows how proponents of big-gunned battleships refused to give way to carrier advocates. Keegan 1989 surveys the horizon from the age of galleons to the new age of carriers, submarines, and the empty ocean.
  532.  
  533. Brodie, Bernard. Sea Power in the Machine Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941.
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  535. Classic study of the application of steam power, screw propellers, rotating turrets, and related technologies of the industrial age that changed the face of naval warfare after 1850.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Coates, J. F., and J. S. Morrison. The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
  538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. Remarkable detective story and engineering feat that ends in the re-creation of an Athenian trireme, which is then put through its paces with a volunteer crew of rowers.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Guilmartin, John F. Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
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  543. The missing chapter to Fernand Braudel’s magisterial study of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Keegan, John. The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare. New York: Viking, 1989.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. Especially useful to those with little background in naval history and theory; case studies focus on Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and submarines and the Battle of the Atlantic.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. McBride, William H. Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865–1945. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
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  551. Explores the persistence of the big-battleship navy, in the face of the development of carrier aviation and submarines. Trenchant.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Mindell, David A. War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
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  555. Perceptive case study that charts sailors’ reactions to the transition from sail power and wooden ships to steam power and iron monitors.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Rodger, N. A. M. The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. Penetrating study of the human-machine dynamic as exhibited by the British Royal Navy’s ships of the line. Superbly detailed with fascinating anecdotes.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Roland, Alex. Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.
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  563. Innovative study that explores an understudied dimension of naval warfare.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Air War
  566.  
  567. The rapid development of airplanes in World War I forever changed warfare. Now, Western countries schemed and fought to control the new “high ground,” and attaining air superiority became the goal of newly formed air forces (with Britain’s Royal Air Force becoming the first fully independent service equal to its army and navy). Hallion 2003 covers the evolution of the aerial weapon, Kennett 1991 and Morrow 1993 address World War I, Overy 1981 provides a masterful survey of World War II, and Crouch 2003 offers a sweeping survey from the Wright Brothers in 1903 to the “shock and awe” of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Biddle 2002 traces the evolution of ideas about strategic bombing and how these interacted with technical imperatives, whereas Sherry 1987 shows the culmination of strategic bombing theory and practice by the United States in the threat (and all-too-real possibility) of nuclear Armageddon during the Cold War. Finally, Dawson 1991 reminds us of the vital importance of propulsion technology to aerial technology.
  568.  
  569. Biddle, Tami Davis. Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
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  571. Connects the technology of air war to its rhetoric—the ideas of “precision” bombing and the notion that air war could be quicker and more merciful than a stalemated war on land (as in World War I).
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Crouch, Tom D. Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
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  575. The best one-volume introduction to the evolution of flight in the 20th century, by the senior curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Dawson, Virginia P. Engines and Innovation: Lewis Laboratory and American Propulsion Technology. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1991.
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  579. Links the often-neglected importance of research and development in propulsion to advances in aerial weaponry and space flight, within the context of governmentally funded research laboratories.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Hallion, Richard P. Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity through the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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  583. Authoritative study and the best one-volume introduction to the development of airplanes and flight.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Kennett, Lee. The First Air War, 1914–1918. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
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  587. Traces the development of technologies, techniques, and tactics of aerial weapons in World War I, from unarmed reconnaissance to pursuit planes to fledgling attempts at strategic bombing toward the close of the war.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Morrow, John H. The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.
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  591. Excellent comparative account of prewar military aviation, stressing its enthusiastic welcome in Europe’s armies.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Overy, Richard J. The Air War, 1939–1945. New York: Stein and Day, 1981.
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  595. The best one-volume introduction to the complex air war of World War II.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Sherry, Michael S. The Rise of American Airpower: The Creation of Armageddon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
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  599. Provocative study that traces American faith in the aerial weapon and its evolution from precision panacea to deterrence by apocalypse.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. The Space Age
  602.  
  603. The launch of Sputnik in 1957 touched off a “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union, but even before this, Arthur C. Clarke, the famous science fiction writer, had pointed out the strategic significance of satellites parked in geostationary orbits. Arnold 2005 details early US efforts to spy from space, Mack 1990 focuses on Landsat and resource exploitation, while Burrows 1998 provides a sweeping view of the first space age that is sensitive to military, political, and civilian concerns. McDougall 1985 suggests that the United States, in beating the Soviets to the moon, had to create a system that mirrored the command economy, bureaucratic inefficiency, and stifling centralization of their rivals. Harford 1997 and Siddiqi 2000 cover Soviet efforts in rocketry and space; Gillespie and Weller 2008 and Spires 1997 cover US military efforts in space. Finally, O’Hanlon 2004 argues that space should not be militarized.
  604.  
  605. Arnold, David C. Spying from Space: Constructing America’s Satellite Command and Control Systems. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005.
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  607. Much of this subject remains highly classified, which makes this detailed study by a colonel and space expert in the US Air Force that much more useful.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Burrows, William E. This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age. New York: Random House, 1998.
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  611. Highly readable account by a journalist and expert on the US space and intelligence community. Provocative.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Gillespie, Paul G., and Grant T. Weller, eds. Harnessing the Heavens: National Defense through Space. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 2008.
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  615. Stimulating collection that addresses the history of the weaponization of space, including proposals for basing missiles on the moon.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Harford, James. Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon. London: Wiley, 1997.
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  619. Recovers the Soviet drive to technological hegemony in the Cold War by focusing on “the chief designer,” Sergei Korolev (b. 1907–d. 1966). Well documented.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Mack, Pamela E. Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.
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  623. Sensitive study by an expert in the sociology of technology and space history that focuses on the Landsat system, which revolutionized humanity’s ability to see the earth, its resources, and the changes humans are making to their environment.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. McDougall, Walter A. . . . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
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  627. Polemical yet provocative critique of the “space race” between the Americans and Soviets; suggests that US efforts in space came to mirror Soviet ones in their emphasis on centralization, control, and secrecy, exercised at governmental levels.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. O’Hanlon, Michael E. Neither Star Wars nor Sanctuary: Constraining the Military Uses of Space. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004.
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  631. Argues that earth-based analogies for using space as a new theater of warfare are deeply flawed and ultimately perilous.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Siddiqi, Asif A. Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974. Washington, DC: NASA History Division, 2000.
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  635. Incredibly detailed and magisterial summary of Soviet efforts in space, with enviable mastery of technical detail.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Spires, David N. Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1997.
  638. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  639. Useful as a summary of efforts in space, as seen by the US military.
  640. Find this resource:
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