Endless Frontier : Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century

by G. Pascal Zachary

• ISBN13: 9780262740227
• ISBN10: 0262740222
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-06-11
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

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.

Author Biography

G. Pascal Zachary is a senior writer at the Wall Street Journal. He has lectured on the history of technology at the University of California at Berkeley, the Smithsonian Institution, and Columbia University.

Table of Contents

Prologue: "Call it a war"	p. 1
The Education of an Engineer
"The sea was all around" (1890-1909)	p. 11
"The man I wanted to be" (1909-18)	p. 23
"Blow for blow" (1919-32)	p. 39
"Versatile, not superficial" (1932-38)	p. 61
Preparing for War
"The minor miracles" (1939-40)	p. 89
"Don't let the bastards get you down" (1940-41)	p. 118
Modern Arms and Free Men
"The man who may win or lose the war" (1942-43)	p. 147
"A race between techniques" (1943-44)	p. 166
"This uranium headache!" (1939-45)	p. 189
"The endless frontier" (1944-45)	p. 218
"After peace returns" (1945)	p. 240
"As we may think" (1945)	p. 261
The New World
"A carry-over from the war" (1945-46)	p. 279
"So doggone weary" (1946-48)	p. 310
"The grim world" (1949-54)	p. 344
"Crying in the wilderness" (1955-70)	p. 379
Postscript: "Earlier than we think"	p. 405
List of Abbreviations	p. 409
Notes	p. 411
Principal Sources	p. 485
Acknowledgments	p. 493
Index	p. 495
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