Endless Frontier - Hardcover

Zachary, G.P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684828219 ISBN 13: 9780684828213

Publisher: The Free Press, 1997

Synopsis

In the 20th - the American - Century, no visionary stands taller than Vannevar Bush. As the inventor and public entrepreneur who launched the Manhattan Project, helped to create the military-industrial complex, conceived of a permanent system of government support for science and engineering and anticipated the personal computer and the Internet, Bush is our century's reincarnation of Ben Franklin. Beginning with his boyhood as a turn-of-the-century tinkerer in his father's basement in Massachusetts, Bush went on to study and teach electrical engineering at Tufts and MIT. An early academic entrepreneur, he cofounded Raytheon, a highly successful electronics company, in his spare time. At MIT, during the Depression, he built what were then the most powerful computers in the world. During World War II, he was Roosevelt's adviser and chief contact on all matters of military technology, including the atomic bomb. He launched the Manhattan Project and oversaw a collection of 6,000 civilian scientists who designed scores of new weapons. When an Allied victory seemed inevitable, his attention turned to the future. In July 1945 he published his legendary essay, "As We May Think, " widely cited as the inspiration for the personal computer and the World Wide Web. In his landmark "Endless Frontier" report, published only weeks later, he boldly equated national security with research strength, outlining a system of permanent federal funding for university research that endures to this day.

About this title

Review

"Deeply informed and insightful, Zachary has thoroughly captured the spirit of Bush and his times." -- Thomas P. Hughes, The New York Times Book Review "This fascinating biography...will probably become the standard work on Bush and remain so for years to come." -- Roger Bridgman, The New Scientist

From the Publisher

Now in Paperback!
As a young professor at MIT in the 1920s, Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) did seminal work on analog computing and was a cofounder of Raytheon, whose initial success was based on long-lasting radio tubes. But he is best known for his role in Washington during World War II: as President Roosevelt's advisor, he organized the Manhattan Project and oversaw the work of 6,000 civilian scientists designing new weapons. His 1945 report "Science- The Endless Frontier" spurred the creation of a system of public support for university research that endures to this day.

Although he helped to give rise to the military-industrial complex, Bush was a skeptical observer of the interplay between science and politics. He warned against the dangers of an arms race and led a failed effort to halt testing of the hydrogen bomb. This balanced and gracefully written biography brings to life an American original and his times.

G. Pascal Zachary, a Senior Writer at the WALL STREET JOURNAL, is the author of SHOWSTOPPER! (1994), a history of the creation of Microsoft's Windows NT.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Free Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0684828219
• ISBN 13: 9780684828213
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 517