Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Best-known for creating the Internet and global positioning systems, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the secretive government initiative begun in 1958 to conduct research for ultimate use by the U.S. military. Inside the severe rigidity of the military, DARPA has extraordinary freedom to pursue research that has led to drones, with innovations under development that include biological and weather warfare, robotics, cyborgs, social science experiments, and war games. Drawing on declassified memos, private documents, and interviews with numerous researchers and scientists, Jacobsen offers a definitive history of the clandestine agency. The Pentagon's Cold War strategy of mutually assured destruction led to the hydrogen bomb and later development of ENIAC, the first computer, on to the modern war on terrorism and development of drones. Jacobsen details DARPA's triumphs and failures, research conducted by quirky scientists, driven by huge egos in the military, politics, and science, with occasional inspiration from science fiction. She explores the implications of DARPA work on technology that will not be widely known to the public for generations but will certainly impact national security and concepts of war.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Jacobsen (Operation Paperclip) draws on interviews with 71 individuals affiliated with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to paint a fascinating and unsettling portrait of the secretive U.S. government agency. Though many Americans may not be familiar with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was created by Congress in 1958, they're undoubtedly familiar with the fruits of its organizational labors. The modern computer, the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, the Internet, unmanned aerial vehicles (aka drones), and even massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) all began as DARPA projects. Startling revelations, including the fact that four nuclear weapons were detonated in space during the Cuban Missile Crisis and that insect-shaped drones hovered above American antiwar protests in 2007, pop up through Jacobsen's narrative as she relays how the agency's innovations incorporated mechanical, psychological, and anthropological efforts to wage war. Jacobsen walks a fine line in telling the story of the agency and its innovations without coming across as a cheerleader or a critic, or letting the narrative devolve into a salacious tell-all. Jacobsen's ability to objectively tell the story of DARPA, not to mention its murky past, is truly remarkable, making for a terrifically well-crafted treatise on the agency most Americans know next to nothing about. Agent: Jim Hornfischer, Hornfischer Literary Management. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Science is often viewed as a way for humanity to improve. However, in journalist Jacobsen's (Operation Paperclip) latest, it is directed at winning war-arguably humanity's cruelest facet. The author has methodically written the history of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), from its inception at the height of the atomic era in 1958 to the present. Her sources include countless archival materials, such as government documents and interviews. The author delves into how the success of DARPA rises and falls with America's military prowess, and how the technologies the agency has created affect daily life, from the Internet to global positioning systems (GPS). This technology is vastly overshadowed by the creation of biological, nuclear, and data mining operations-which receive much attention within this book. Jacobsen's account will serve as the model for histories of military research and development and is likely to lead to more works and articles about DARPA. VERDICT This engrossing, conversation-starting read is highly recommended for policymakers, historians, scientists, and others who study technology's implications. It will complement Jonathon Moreno's Mind Wars and Sarah Bridger's Scientists at War. [See Prepub Alert, 3/23/15.]-Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military's top-secret research and development agency. During the Cold War, the arms race between the United States and Soviet Union was a result of the belief in mutually assured destruction. If one nation were to strike with nuclear weapons, it would precipitate its own downfall. This constant tension created a unique environment in which the American military needed to invest heavily in new arms and technology to stay one step ahead of their Soviet foes. Officially created in 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower, DARPA was tasked with leading the military's efforts to develop the means to prevent a Soviet nuclear strike or invasion. The department quickly evolved to encompass all manners of defense, including cutting-edge psychological and biological warfare. Jacobsen (Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, 2014, etc.) is no stranger to secretive government projects, and she weaves a dramatic history of the agency that exposes, through newly declassified documents and firsthand interviews with former DARPA scientists, the astounding and often terrifying developments that emerged from the program. One of the greatest pleasures of Jacobsen's thoroughly crafted narrative is the anachronisms of obsolete high-tech. For instance, the author details the development of ARPANET, the predecessor to today's Internet, and the room-sized computers that it was designed to use. However, not all DARPA projects are as apolitical and quaint. There is the unavoidable truth that DARPA was created to develop sophisticated weaponry designed to annihilate populations. One of the most egregious examples is Agent Orange, the extremely toxic defoliant. Chronicling DARPA to the present day, Jacobsen also sketches portraits of the immensely brilliant, ambitious, and flawed scientists that dedicated themselves to science and country. Filled with the intrigue and high stakes of a spy novel, Jacobsen's history of DARPA is as much a fascinating testament to human ingenuity as it is a paean to endless industrial warfare and the bureaucracy of the military-industrial complex. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
