Follow the Author

William D. Hartung

Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex Paperback – March 6, 2012

by William D Hartung (Author)

65 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$12.05

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$8.29

$59.95

$2.65

Paperback

"Please retry"

—

$15.00

$4.19

Enthralling and explosive, Prophets of War is an expos' of America's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his famous warning about the dangers of the military industrial complex, he never would have dreamed that a company could accumulate the kind of power and influence now wielded by this behemoth company.

As a full-service weapons maker, Lockheed Martin receives over 25 billion per year in Pentagon contracts. From aircraft and munitions, to the abysmal Star Wars missile defense program, to the spy satellites that the NSA has used to monitor Americans' phone calls without their knowledge, Lockheed Martin's reaches into all areas of US defense and American life. William Hartung's meticulously researched history follows the company's meteoric growth and explains how this arms industry giant has shaped US foreign policy for decades.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bold Type Books
Publication date

March 6, 2012
Grade level

11 and up
Reading age

13 years and up
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.84 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

1568586973
ISBN-13

978-1568586977
See all details

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Michael Swanson
224
Paperback
$18.95
James Ledbetter
24
Paperback
$20.00
James McCartney
19
Hardcover
$26.99
David Swanson
54
Paperback
$25.00
Ben R. Rich
1,613
Paperback
107 offers from $2.32
Andrew Feinstein
29
Paperback
$20.06

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Michael Swanson
224
Paperback
$18.95
James Ledbetter
24
Paperback
$20.00
George Orwell
52,218
Mass Market Paperback
in Classic American Literature
193 offers from $1.98
James McCartney
19
Hardcover
$26.99
David Swanson
54
Paperback
$25.00
Walter J. Boyne
17
Paperback
$24.99

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bill Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. He has worked for the Council on Economic Priorities and the World Policy Institute doing research and writing on the arms industry and the politics of defense spending. Hartung is the author of two books on the intersection between the arms industry and the shaping of U.S. foreign policy, And Weapons for All and How Much Are You Making on the War, Daddy? -- A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration.

Hartung has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the Nation, and has been interviewed by ABC News, CBS 60 Minutes, CNN, Fox News, the Lehrer Newshour, NBC Nightly News, and National Public Radio. His writing on Lockheed Martin has appeared in the Washington Post Outlook section, the Nation, the Multinational Monitor, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He lives in New York City.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bold Type Books; First Trade Paper Edition (March 6, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1568586973
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1568586977
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 years and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 11 and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.84 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #315,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #97 in Business Infrastructure
- #374 in Conventional Weapons & Warfare History (Books)
- #608 in National & International Security (Books)

Customer Reviews:
65 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload video

Customer reviews

5 star		69%
4 star		20%
3 star		6%
2 star		1%
1 star		4%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Ed Gehead

Government corrupts.

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2011

Verified Purchase

Just finished "Prophets". Hartung is definitely an accomplished writer in the journalistic style. 250 pages of text literally flowed from start to finish. Furthermore, Hartung is an expert who has made a career of specializing in the "military industrial complex". He obviously has an agenda but he clearly knows his facts and I (as a libertarian on guard for propaganda) sensed no attempt to distort or fabricate. The reviews are divided along ideological lines with the liberals praising the work because it fully exposes the corruption of a huge corporation and the conservatives (unfairly) giving the work 1 star because they think that the corporation has been unfairly vilified. I give the work 4 stars because, while accurate and well written, "Prophet", in the end, omits an insightful analysis of the underlying problem. What is the root of the corruption problem and what can be done to correct and avoid it??? Concluding that the answer is political and that we citizens must be informed and stay vigilant is simplistic nonsense. I think most citizens already know that there is a high level of corruption in virtually all government contracting. It simply is greater in the defense industry because that industry is the biggest. Today we are all too familiar with "too big to fail." My point is that we cannot stop "corruption" and we certainly cannot stop corruption on the scale exposed in "Prophets" This is because of the principle that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The left misconstrues this principle as applying only to corporations when in fact it applies with far more force to government.The real source of our problem is that we have reached the state where our government, over the years, has ignored constitutional limitations and gradually assumed absolute power. Although there is a growing popular movement to reign in government to the limits envisioned by our constitution, it is too little and too late because that the battle has been irretrievably lost over the years. We are simply going to have to reluctantly accept growing corruption until the people are so fed up that they develop the will to revolt in an attempt to reestablish a truly limited government. All of this was foreseen by our founding fathers who were well familiar with the historical tendencies of governments to abuse power. They also foresaw that the limits they had attempted to incorporate in the constitution, in the end, would not work. They were spectacularly prescient.

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Steven Roberts

Excellent expose of the leading contractor for DOD and US Govt.

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book details the amazing ability of the largest contractor of military and space hardware the US has ever hired to deliver absolutely dangerous and defectively designed aircraft, ships, and missiles way over budget and with no accountability for fleecing the citizens of Billions of dollars. Lockheed Martin continues to be the largest violator of laws and regulations against lobbying, and outright fraudulent contractual activity. This book is very readable and disturbing at the same time. It will cause you to look into the continued fraud and waste in our DOD which since 1990's has not been able to pass an audit. You will learn about the revolving door policy of top military men who are in bed with the contractors and are given lucrative jobs on retirement in return for not rocking the boat. You will learn of whistleblowers who are run out of their jobs for bringing up the subject. Scarier is the fact the this conglomerate corporation is now in the full war services business including providing contract employees to perform military functions much like Blackwater, now XE and KBR/Haliburton. Every time they are caught cheating the system and are fined, we the taxpayer pay the bills. This was truly one of the first companies that was deemed "Too big to fail" and bailed out by the US Taxpayer at every step along the way. Eye opening and scary.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

jem

Eye Opening

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2017

Verified Purchase

Eye opening and packed with very interesting information regarding the workings of our country's defense industry and their political connections, lobbying successes and all around fleecing of citizens of this country.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Retired Reader

The Military-Industrial Complex in Action

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2011

Verified Purchase

This book is built around two intertwined themes: a minor theme on the corporate history of the Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company (LM); and a major theme on the workings of what President Eisenhower famously referred to as the "military-industrial complex." This book is not an attack on LM, but uses the aerospace giant as the center piece of an exposition on the inter-action of the Department of Defense (DOD), the Congress, and private contractors in the design and acquisition of defense systems.

Actually the corporate history of LM is interesting enough that one wished Hartung had gone into more detail. In any event it provides enough of a sketchy history to follow how small scale airplane manufacturing effort begun by the Loughead brothers (who latter changed the spelling to Lockheed to avoid having people mispronounce their name) was gradually transformed into the aero-space giant that it is today.

The bulk of the book really is concerned with showing why what should be a fairly straight forward process of a military service buying a weapon system has become such a convoluted and complicated business. Since before its merger with Martin Marietta, LM was primarily an aircraft manufacturer, Hartung provides a lot of examples of USAF procurement practices with the unwritten assumption they are representative of DOD as a whole.

First there is the universal practice of low bidding. That is a contractor will purposely try to win a contractor by offering to produce a system at a much lower cost than what it will actually cost to produce. Once the contract is awarded the cost then can be adjusted upward in collusion with the client. Then there is the matter of `requirements creep' once a contract is awarded the client has no qualms about changing or adding to the original requirements. Engineering new requirements into a system can be very costly. Finally there is congress and the matter of protecting jobs in states and congressional districts. Cost overruns are supported by congress to keep plants open and job growth going in key districts.

Although LM is used to exemplify this process throughout this book, it is the DOD procurement system and pork barrel politics that are actually at fault here. There are no villains here, but a lot of short sighted fools.

50 people found this helpful

Helpful

Peter Loeb

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book provides the best update on what the defense industry
ios like today. Many thanks to W.D. Hartung.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Peter

Lockheed inside

Reviewed in Germany on October 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

Wen das Thema interessiert der sollte dieses Buch unbedingt lesen....gut recherchiert und vieles war auch für mich neu kenne kaum ein buch das bessere insights zu lockheed bietet

One person found this helpful

Translate review to English

Flammia

good read

Reviewed in Canada on August 14, 2020

Verified Purchase

good read

Jaimie

Prophets of War

Reviewed in Australia on June 14, 2014

Verified Purchase

Very informative and thoroughly researched. Gives a detailed breakdown of the military industrial complex and Lockheeds influence at every level of government and there decisions.

Ed

Ponderous

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Labours the point in laborious detail which makes for a bit of a ponderous read. In it's defence, if the author omitted the blow by blow detail, it would have weakened the case against Lockheed Martin. Hardly a gripping read.

One person found this helpful

888

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

d

See all reviews

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: corporate security

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex Paperback – March 6, 2012

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Product details

Videos

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Customers who bought this item also bought