The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency

by Annie Jacobsen

No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In this first-ever, in depth account of the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present. This is the book on DARPA-- a compelling narrative about the clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

• ISBN10: 0316371769
• ISBN13: 9780316371766
• Publish Date: 22 September 2015 (first published 15 September 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Little, Brown & Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 544
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

Damn. It’s the usual ‘if this is what’s unclassified, they’re doing orders of magnitude worse.’ And we punish the whistleblowers instead of those involved.

That’s where the book fell short, though; it could have delved harder on the privacy and, y’know, war crimes stuff. But that’s a different book, I suppose.

Also I learned the Pentagon has an initiative where they consult with popular science fiction writers, so the last chapter was Jacobsen tagging along with Chris Carter (The X-Files) and Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator) to the Pentagon, and frankly that’s terrifying.