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

Epstein (history, Rutgers Univ.-Camden) follows her 2014 exploration of the Anglo American naval arms race, Torpedo, with this exhaustive technical and legal history of fire control systems used by navies on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 20th century. Simply put, fire control systems are the means by which a navy gunner can figure out where to aim to hit an enemy ship when both vessels are in motion in choppy, cloudy, or otherwise obscured seas. The book centers around Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood’s breakthrough invention: one of the world’s first electrically powered analogue computers. It was quashed and then stolen by first the Royal Navy and later by the U.S. Navy and its colluding private contractors. Epstein explores how patent laws—granting a limited monopoly to inventors—collide with military secrecy practices that prevent disclosure to anyone outside of the government. Her ultimate argument is that the U.S. pirated analog technological breakthroughs from the UK, but the tables are now turned. She asserts that means the U.S., in the interest of national security, must now fend off threats of industrial espionage and digital realm copying.