Science Goes to War: The Search for the Ultimate Weapon--from Greek Fire to Star Wars

by Ernest Volkman

"It was a thing blameworthy, shameful and barbarous, worthy of severe punishment before God and Man, to wish to bring to perfection an art damageable to one's neighbor and destructive to the human race."
This anguished statement from the fifteenth-century Italian mathematician known as Tartaglia, who created the science of ballistics, might have come from any one of thousands of brilliant scientists who, throughout history, have applied their genius to the art of war. Every advance in weaponry from the bronze sword to the stealth bomber has been the product of science, and it is likely that without the pressure of war, science as we know it would not exist.
Science Goes to War examines the moral dilemmas, knotty technological problems, and pragmatic necessities that have punctuated the inseparable histories of science and warfare. This remarkably comprehensive volume recounts the 4,000-year quest for the ultimate weapon and reveals how this eternal arms race has both exploited and contributed to "pure" science. Highlights among the many compelling stories in Science Goes to War
* Archimedes and the defense of Syracuse
* Galileo and the first military R&D laboratory
* Emperor Meiji and the technological transformation of Japan
* The Manhattan Project

Genres: Science, History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Ernest Wyman Volkman was an American author, investigative reporter, and journalist who wrote about war, espionage, and the criminal underworld. Volkman was a 1959 graduate of Walt Whitman High School in South Huntington, New York, and attended Hofstra University.
A U.S. Army veteran, Volkman was also a military intelligence specialist and wrote many books on the subjects of spies and spying.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I has this loaned to me by my father in law.

The book makes a good case that the civilizations that win wars and dominate international relations are the ones with the best and most advanced weapons, and that any great power must constantly invest in weapons development or be overtaken by other powers who do. It's a history of humanity in a nutshell: war, and conquest, and then more war.

The author hits home his thesis rather unnecessarily hard; it seemed like several times a chapter, he was rather laboriously emphasizing how historical events support his central thesis. I felt like I was being bludgeoned over the head with it; I wouldn't have minded if it was a bit more subtle.

That said, the author provides a rather compelling lens with which to view world history, and makes a pretty strong argument for continued modern weapons development. The implications of this are rather dark, though; presumably, most modern world powers have taken these lessons to heart, and are constantly researching new and improved superweapons. But the problem is, we're already past the point at which we could wipe ourselves out-with nuclear and biological weapons, with have presumably advanced significantly since they were outlawed by treaty nearly a century ago.

The book also rather convincingly argues that scientists should not and cannot shrug off responsibility for their creations. The discovery of fission would inevitably lead to the atomic bomb. There's no such thing as pure science; all science has applications, and many of those applications are deadly. But the book also argues that even when individual scientists protest and refuse to work on weaponry, there will be others who will. Science and weapons technology have been marching inexorably forward since the dawn of civilization, and they will continue to do so.