Sharon Weinberger

In this popular history of DARPA, Weinberger sets herself the question of how an agency legendary for initiating a number of major transformative technological developments can often seem irrelevant when dealing with the big security questions. The answer would seem to be that most of the big failures occurred when DARPA entered the realm of political warfare when used as a tool in some of the more dubious wars of the United States, such as Vietnam and the ongoing "forever war" with an show more intractable Muslim world. Even the most elegant technological solutions (and DARPA has had its share of clunkers over the years) will not save one from an ill-chosen contest where there was always a low chance of success. As one disgruntled DARPA manager critical of this book noted at Amazon, those sort of mistakes get deservedly hung on the politicians. Still, I thought this book was worth reading and I suspect that it's about as good an account as one is going to get of the agency at the current time. show less

What I expected: A look inside an institutional culture that sustained innovation almost miraculously for decades.

The impression I got: Multiple agencies over time, each evolving into the next and taking on the personality of the leadership and the obsessions of the day.

The view from the inside was a lot more mundane than the view from the outside of all the innovations it's been involved with. More about the bureaucracy behind the technology than the technology itself. Absolutely worthy of show more documentation, but not like a Neal Stephenson novel brought to life. show less

Weinberger provides an captivating window into the tangled world of defense research. Fears of adversaries developing a technological advantage, hope for radical scientific break-throughs, and secrecy combine to create a wilderness of mirrors where millions of dollars can be spent on a concept that has no clear scientific support.

Based on the incredible history of (D)ARPA you could write a gripping story of amazing technology instead of this sprawling review of people working for the agency. Every time a project was mentioned I would get excited only to be disappointed by the focus on office gossip, dinners, backstabbing, personal successes and failures and peoples' opinions on... other people. What a waste of extensive research.