1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910812251503321

Autore

Epstein Katherine C. <1982->

Titolo

Torpedo : inventing the military-industrial complex in the United States and Great Britain / / Katherine C. Epstein

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Massachusetts : , : Harvard University Press, , 2014

ISBN

0-674-72740-1

0-674-72628-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (328 p.)

Disciplina

338.4/76234517

Soggetti

Torpedoes - United States - Design and construction - History - 20th century

Torpedoes - Great Britain - Design and construction - History - 20th century

Weapons systems - Technological innovations

World War, 1939-1945 - Equipment and supplies

Military-industrial complex - United States - History - 20th century

Military-industrial complex - Great Britain - History - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

America's weapons of the weak -- Britain's weapons of the strong -- The U.S. Navy and the emergence of command technology -- The Royal Navy and the quest for reach -- Command technology on trial in the United States -- A very bad gap in Britain -- Conclusion.

Sommario/riassunto

When President Eisenhower referred to the "military-industrial complex" in his 1961 Farewell Address, he summed up in a phrase the merger of government and industry that dominated the Cold War United States. In this bold reappraisal, Katherine Epstein uncovers the origins of the military-industrial complex in the decades preceding World War I, as the United States and Great Britain struggled to perfect a crucial new weapon: the self-propelled torpedo. Torpedoes threatened to upend the delicate balance among the world's naval powers, they were bought and sold in a global marketplace, and they were cutting-edge industrial technologies. But building them required substantial capital investments and close collaboration among



scientists, engineers, businessmen, and naval officers. To address these formidable challenges, the U.S. and British navies created a new procurement paradigm: instead of buying finished armaments from the private sector or developing them from scratch at public expense, they began to invest in private-sector research and development. The inventions emerging from torpedo R&D sparked legal battles over intellectual property rights that reshaped national security law. Torpedo blends military, legal, and business history with the history of science and technology to recast our understanding of defense contracting and the demands of modern warfare.