Customer Reviews

The Tender Ship: GOVERNMENTAL MANAGEMENtal of Technological Change

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I read this book while studying for my Master of Environmental Management at Duke in 1992. I was impressed.

Squires himself is a figure worthy of admiration. He was instrumental in the design and improvement of the electromagnetic separator apparati used on uranium at Oak Ridge during World War II. He was a consumate "maestro," to use his own words.

His book makes a sharp point of criticizing government interference with expertise. Some of the chapters concern the Swedish warship, Vasa, the English attempts at developing dirigibles to compete with the German Zepellins, and the fiasco of the M-16 rifle; the only real fault of which he is convinced was a change in the gunpowder used in the production ammunition. There are others.

His point is that influence is no substitute for expertise; that playing politics leads to failures of technology and loss of life.

I am almost reminded of Ayn Rand when I read this book, but keep in mind that Squires deals with factual examples of technology gone wrong because of influence peddling and stupidity. I am also reminded of "The Common Sense of Science" by J. Bronowski.