Boot, Max

Boot, Max. War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today. New York: Gotham Books (Penguin), 2006.

Rev. Derek Leebaert, "Shooting Ahead," The Washington Post National Weekly Edition 4-10 Dec. 2006: 33. Leebaert begins his review with an allusion to Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "Superiority" (1951) and how it "soon entered MIT's engineering curriculum." This story about a technologically superior empire defeated by "an inferior enemy"—technologically inferior to start with (but with some advantages, obviously)—"served as a reminder that technology is beguiling, promises great opportunities[,] yet forever tempts its believers to step into the abyss between the laboratory and the battlefield." MB's book shows the importance of technology and simultaneously illustrates this theme. (Leebaert doesn't particularly like War Made New.)

9. BACK, RDE, 10/III/07