The Hoover Applied History Working Group hosted a special book-launch seminar: Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State, on March 14, 2024.
ABOUT THE TALK
A seminar that discusses law, international affairs, and top-secret technology, unmasking the tension between intellectual property rights and national security.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, solved a major military problem: how to aim and fire the big guns of battleships in poor conditions. Pollen and Isherwood built an integrated system for gathering data, calculating predictions, and transmitting the results to the gunners. At the heart of their invention was the most advanced analog computer of the day, a technological breakthrough that anticipated the famous Norden bombsight of World War II, the inertial guidance systems of nuclear missiles, and the networked “smart” systems that dominate combat today. Recognizing the value of Pollen and Isherwood’s invention, the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy pirated it, one after the other. When the inventors sued, both the British and US governments invoked secrecy, citing national security concerns.
Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Kate Epstein analyzes these and related legal battles over naval technology, exploring how national defense tested the two countries’ commitment to individual rights and the free market. Epstein’s account reveals that long before the US national security state sought to restrict information about atomic energy, it was already embroiled in another contest between innovation and secrecy. The America portrayed in this sweeping and accessible history isn’t yet a global hegemon but a rising superpower ready to acquire foreign technology by fair means or foul—much as it accuses China of doing today.
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The opinions expressed in this video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.
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