America’s greatest idea factory isn’t Bell Labs, Silicon Valley, or MIT’s Media Lab. It’s the secretive, Pentagon-led agency known as DARPA. Founded by Eisenhower in response to Sputnik and the Soviet space race, DARPA mixes military officers with sneaker-wearing scientists, seeking paradigm-shifting thinking in a wide variety of fields -- from energy, robotics, and rockets, to people-less operating rooms, driverless cars, and planes that can fly halfway around the world in just hours. DARPA gave birth to the Internet, GPS, and mind controlled robotic arms. Its geniuses define future technology for the military and the rest of us.
Michael Belfiore was given unprecedented access to write this first ever general account of DARPA. He visited research sites across the country, watching scientists in action, and talking to the creative, fearlessly ambitious visionaries working for and with DARPA. Much of DARPA work is classified and this book is full of material that has barely been reported in the general media. In fact, DARPA estimates that only 2% of Americans know much of anything about the agency. This fascinating account demonstrates that DARPA isn’t so much frightening as inspiring; it is our future.
Hardcover
6 x 9; Pages: 320
