The Pentagon's Brain
An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
by Annie Jacobsen · first published 2015
75% recommend25% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Narrative history of DARPA and the defense research programs behind many well-known technologies. It offers a solid starting point for understanding how the agency operates and where its projects came from.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and scope--has expanded enormously with each passing year. From Agent Orange in Vietnam to insect-sized drones in use today, from the earliest networked computers and the Internet to smart rockets and war z
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
1) The Imagineer’s of War by Sharon Weinberger 2) The Pentagon’s Brain by Annie Jacobson
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗A good book about the history of the Jasons (and everything in and around DARPA) is The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA (2016) by Annie Jacobsen. Recommended read! https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T... https://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443334499/pulling-back-the-cu...
on “After Pentagon Ends Contract, Top-Secret Scientists Group Vows To Carry On” ↗…https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp... Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott-Rosenberg-audi... The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency - https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T... The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the…
on “Ask HN: Material on early computing history and innovation?” ↗…Four billion years of life up in smoke (or out in debris, I should say). The question of whether humans are the most intelligent life form on the planet is still under active consideration. :) [1] The Pentagon's Brain by Annie Jacobsen
on “NASA: Tonga blast was 10 megatons, more powerful than a nuclear bomb” ↗