Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State

Historian Epstein (Torpedo) provides a rigorous overview of tensions that emerged between militaries and defense contractors over intellectual property law in the early 20th century. At the center of Epstein’s argument is a breakthrough “analog computer” designed in 1906 by British inventors Arthur Pollen and Michael Isherwood that used algorithmic prediction to radically improve the ability of one ship’s guns to target another. Pollen and Isherwood’s “calculating and predicting machine” was quickly pirated by both the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy, a theft which Epstein uses as an entry point to an expansive tour of British and U.S. patent law and the turn-of-the-century squabbling that proliferated among private contractors and the British and U.S. governments. She shows how emerging concerns about national security and state secrets clashed with existing liberal attitudes about the importance of protecting IP as both countries, jockeying for naval dominance, trampled over the rights of inventors. Once the reader acclimates to the technical jargon, the narrative takes on a brisk, dishy feel, as Epstein peppers her catalogue of stolen inventions and legal disputes with evocative firsthand accounts. In her opening and closing sections, though, Epstein offers hot takes on much broader topics, including current China-U.S. relations, that feel somewhat rushed. Still, this is a unique perspective on the military-industrial complex that, at its best, reads like a legal thriller for the technically minded. (Oct.)