The technology that was created to win World War II (radar) has revolutionized the modern world. This is the story of the inventors and their inventions. Photos. Line drawings.
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Amazon.com Review
Without the invention of radar, Europe--and possibly even the world--might today be under Fascist rule. This well-written, technically accurate, and even exciting account captures the urgency of the race to win World War II, the people behind the magnetrons, screens and antennae, and the use of radar in the cold war. Another extraordinary volume from the Sloan Foundation Technology Series, and Highly Recommended.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
As the former technology editor for Business Week, Buderi understands his complex subject well enough to render it clear without oversimplifying it. The first half of his book makes a strong case that the atomic bomb only ended WWII?it was radar that won it. Radar tipped the balance in the Battle of Britain, at Midway and in the Solomons. Radar haunted the U-boats and helped control the V-1 attacks of 1944-45. Meanwhile, radar countermeasures and navigation systems set the stage for the D-Day landings. Buderi tells this story well, with an unusual ability to describe technical subjects in language a nonspecialist can comprehend. In the second half of the book, he devotes half a dozen chapters to biographical sketches of key, albeit little-known, participants in the wartime radar program. Finally, the author brings to center stage radar technology's contributions to the Cold War and to space astronomy. While this concluding discussion is informative, it scants other areas influenced by radar. Subjects such as air-traffic control and weather reporting deserve better than relegation to an epilogue. Overall, this is a vigorous history, but an unfocused one. Photos, not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By Fred
Format:Paperback
This book is really two books in one, the first being an outline of the development of radar immediately prior to and during World War II. This part takes up the first 245 pages of the book, is extremely well organized and plays out the complete development and deployment of radar during World War II. This early part takes you through the people and organizations that were behind radar's development, as well as a very top level view of the technology used to create the device. The author walks you through a very good description of radar's development on a global scale, outlining how the US and UK led the development, why Germany was only slightly further behind, and why Japan was so lagging. Mr. Buderi takes several major battles, including the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Midway, and outlines the significance of radar in those battles and how it truly was the winning weapon of the war. This part of the book clearly rates 5 stars, and makes the whole text worth purchasing.
The second part of the book, which takes up the final 233 pages, is less organized and much less linear in its thought development. While this lack of organization does reflect the decentralization of radar development following WWII, it does not make this section any easier to read. While the development or radar as an astronomical tool, its deployment and adoption at civilian airports and the use of its underlying technologies in the development of integrated circuit are all significant, their depiction as essential parts of the story is lacking. The second part ranks 2 stars, and is good reference material, but should be read on a chapter by chapter basis, as that appears to be how they were written.
In summary, the first part is great - 5 stars, the second part was less a book, but more a stringing together of engineering stories and earned only 2 stars. I gave it a weighted average of 4.
Favorite Excerpts:
"I never read books - they interfere with thinking." - Paul Dirac to Robert Oppenheimer (page 48)
"It didn't make me more enemies than I cared about, because the enemies that you have to worry about are smart enemies, and smart people didn't get mad at me unless they had a good reason to." - George Valley Jr. (page 183)
"Some of my friends seemed to know every year model of every car, that seemed to me so temporary and uninteresting. Nature is such a permanent aspect of our universe, and so obviously God-made." -Charles Townes (page 336)
"We had the authority and influence that came from being indispensable." - Jay Forrester (page 397)
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After all these years (1942-1998) I see at last an account of the work we did at Sydney University Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Radiophysics Lab! I was a Navy 2nd Class Radarman assigned to develop electronic countermeasures items (electronic warfare). This book tells it like it was! It rang so true to me that I was carried back once again to my three years on that assignment under Gen Douglas MacArthur, as a member of the ECM group. If you want to know what we did, and many others around the world in this super-secret assignment, Buderi has captured it beautifully. No one person or group "won" the war, but the part played by those involved in radar most certainly changed its course toward the eventual outcome so little appreciated today. --wboyd@netdex.com
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
An excellent book that combines the flavor of war with vivid and accessible technological descriptions. Buderi is to be congratulated on an outstanding accomplishment. I always knew the story of MIT's famous radiation laboratory would make great reading and now Buderi has come along to do the job.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good technical read
Of course, you have to be interested in this technical stuff, and as such this book is done just right.
Published 4 months ago by Richard C. Porter
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dull
I'm pretty much the ideal reader for a book like this -- I'm interested in the subject. But the writing never grabbed me -- I am a fairly lazy reader. Read more
Published 11 months ago by offby1
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome Story!
This book is a wonderful reference for me for several reasons:
1.The development of the magnetron was a major achievement by scientists in my field of expertise. Read more
1.The development of the magnetron was a major achievement by scientists in my field of expertise. Read more
Published 12 months ago by David Shores
4.0 out of 5 stars
In line with the pencil, sextant, and other such books.
I'm enjoying this read. Years ago I read books covering development of the pencil and the sextant, and this book is in line with them. Read more
Published on March 28, 2011 by Wayne
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good history of radar development in WWII
This book is a thorough and mostly non-technical history of radar development. It starts at the very beginning of the 20th century with the discovery and application of radio... Read more
Published on February 25, 2011 by Wikileaker
3.0 out of 5 stars
Illuminating but incomplete
This is one of the most accessible books to explore this war-winning and world-changing technology and some of the principal people behind it. Read more
Published on March 2, 2010 by Dick Stanley
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great effort but not easy to read
The effort put in researching the material for this book must have been huge. Furthermore, since several of the events described were happening in parallel in separate and distant... Read more
Published on November 5, 2009 by S. ragno
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good book - if you're the right reader
In his introduction, the author explains that he chose to focus on the people who invented radar, and he does that well. Read more
Published on October 26, 2009 by Sasha Alyson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Book is very good, printing not so much
I enjoyed this book. It explains how radar became such an important component of the allies victory in WWII. Read more
Published on September 10, 2009 by Colin Povey
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent account of the development of radar, made spicey by...
THE INVENTION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by Robert Buderi is 575 pages, with 20 chapters, eight pages of black and white photographs (pages 18-26), and several diagrams and charts. Read more
Published on July 17, 2009 by Tom Brody
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 24
books:
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15
books
cite this book:
See all 15 books citing this book
- The Battle of Britain (Royal Air Force Official Histories: Air Defence of Great Britain, v.2) by T.C.G. James in Back Matter, Index (1), and Index (2)
- New International Dictionary of Quotations, 3rd Edition by Margaret Miner in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 1: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943 by Samuel Eliot Morison on page 169, and Back Matter
- Most Secret War (Classics of World War II the Secret War) by R. V. Jones in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- A Commotion in the Blood: Life, Death, and the Immune System (Sloan Technology Series) by Stephen S. Hall in Front Matter
See all 24 books this book cites
- Hitler's Raid to Save Mussolini: The Most Infamous Commando Operation of World War II by Greg Annussek in Back Matter
- Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age (Sloan Technology) by Michael Riordan in Front Matter
- Computer: A History Of The Information Machine (Sloan Technology Series) by William Aspray in Front Matter
- Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age (Sloan Technology Series) by Michael Riordan in Front Matter
- A Prehistory of the North: Human Settlement of the Higher Latitudes by John F. Hoffecker in Back Matter
See all 15 books citing this book
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