Fans pick 92 books like The Imagineers of War

If you want an introduction to DARPA and how it has managed to play such an outsize role in the creation of the technologies of the future, start with this book on its best-known and most influential project, ARPANET. ARPANET went online way back in 1969, when, for the very first time, two computers of disparate types connected over a dedicated phone line to exchange data.

This book tells the story of how the project came together and how it birthed the internet, offering a book-length case study of how DARPA creates wizardry on a relative shoestring. There are lots of great details here, such as the poor soul who kept getting harassed by one of the first dial-up modems calling the wrong number. 

Somewhere between wide-eyed optimism about the potential of human ingenuity and skepticism about technology’s ability to save us from ourselves lies Annie Jacobsen’s book. It covers DARPA’s founding and the first fifty years before reporting on projects active at the time of the book’s writing (it came out in 2015).

The result is a balanced mix of history, analysis, and you-are-there reporting in a highly readable narrative. The book contains the best explanation I’ve seen of DARPA’s controversial, post-911 Total Information Awareness program and raises important questions about when, how, and why governments should conduct research and development in secret.

For a deeper dive into how DARPA came to be in 1958 and its history into the early 1970s, read the first book-length treatment of the subject. This book was commissioned by the agency itself and draws from extensive interviews with directors and program managers. Every other book about DARPA lists this one in its bibliography.

Learn why DARPA almost didn’t survive its first couple of years, likened to a “dead cat hanging in the fruit closet,” and how a “white elephant” became its salvation. Someone needs to publish this treatise properly in book form. For now, it exists as a free download from a military website as a PDF of a faded photocopy stamped “approved for public release,” adding to its intrigue.

The wonkiest of the best books on DARPA is an anthology of essays on how DARPA works, starting with some background on its origins. This book should be of interest to anyone trying to emulate DARPA in generating ideas and bringing them to life quickly and efficiently.

Among the success factors outlined by academics, analysts, and past DARPA program managers: low overhead (DARPA has no labs of its own, instead relying on contractors), minimal bureaucracy with only two layers of management, and organizational independence (although it is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA functions mostly autonomously). Editor and contributor Patrick Windham is married to Arati Prabhakar, a former DARPA director.

I admit that I am intrigued by the ingenuity and the training of the Israeli Defense Forces. This is a thriller of a different kind.

I read this book to research and understand how the Israelis evolved their “we have no choice but to be the best” ethic. This is not a book about politics or moral judgments. It is an objective overview of how the army came into being and how, to this day, they discard conventional military thinking in defending their country—whether through battlefield strategy, innovation in defense technology, or intelligence services.

I found the book fascinating, especially the Israelis’ lateral thinking, encouragement, and application of ideas.

Of the small subgenre books that deal with the way games aid education, Toppo's shows how games can make a difference in the way students learn by looking at first at a Washington, D.C. school's success with improving math scores through game playing. From there, he visits professors and visionaries, all of whom have helped kids learn through games. One thing becomes clear: if there were a games class in every school, especially in underserved communities, student grades would go up.

A wakeup call for many. Martin made the case of how tech is accelerating and impacting work, bringing the threat of massive unemployment to the public scene, and insisting that it’s not only blue-collar jobs that are concerned.

Critics noted a narrow stance that fails to account for factors like shifting demographics and trends like gigging. And massive unemployment has not yet materialized, though to his defense less than a decade has passed since. The only remedy from Martin – Universal Basic Income – is not a miracle solution applicable worldwide.

The book’s focus is more on convincing audiences of the upcoming problems than working on solutions. Setting aside these critics, Rise of the Robots remains an undeniable classic for anyone curious about tech’s impact on work.

A few weeks after completing my PhD at Cornell University, I walked into my first real job as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories. I stayed there for 20 years. Gertner’s book describes that storied institution and how it provided the fertile ground for so many innovators to thrive, from the creators of the transistor to the discoverers of the Big Bang. 

My favorite chapter covered the development of mobile telephone networks. Yes, it is an interesting tale, but for me, the best part was that I knew and worked with several of the key players in that story during my career there.

This was the first (and still the best) book I ever read on how scientists collect and use the data for forecasting the weather and predicting climate change. I am particularly impressed with its scope–it starts with early attempts by 17th and 18th-century scientists to agree on how to measure things like wind and rainfall and ends with today’s world of satellites and computer models.

The book really brings alive the work of a massive network of scientists around the world collecting and analyzing observations about planet Earth.

What holds the future of globalization in store?

I learned a lot from Baldwin’s insightful book, which posits a fast and dramatic rise of digital service trade between high- and low-wage countries.

Such services could range from well-known digital back-office services, such as airline ticketing in India, to more speculative “global robotics”, dubbed “globotics”, such as cross-border controlling of robots via virtual reality devices.

Baldwin points to new opportunities emerging to developing economies that hitherto were unable to gain from the globalization of manufacturing value chains. But he also warns of potentially dramatic social consequences in high-wage countries.

Whether you agree or disagree with his diagnosis, this is essential reading to be prepared for the next wave of globalization and its potential social disruptions.