A gripping history that spans law, international affairs, and top-secret technology to unmask the tension between intellectual property rights and national security.
 
At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, became fascinated by a major military question: how to aim the big guns of battleships. These warships—of enormous geopolitical import before the advent of intercontinental missiles or drones—had to shoot in poor light and choppy seas at distant moving targets, conditions that impeded accurate gunfire. Seeing the need to account for a plethora of variables, Pollen and Isherwood built an integrated system for gathering data, calculating predictions, and transmitting the results to the gunners. At the heart of their invention was the most advanced analog computer of the day, a technological breakthrough that anticipated the famous Norden bombsight of World War II, the inertial guidance systems of nuclear missiles, and the networked “smart” systems that dominate combat today. Recognizing the value of Pollen and Isherwood’s invention, the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy pirated it, one after the other. When the inventors sued, both the British and US governments invoked secrecy, citing national security concerns.
 
Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Analog Superpowers analyzes these and related legal battles over naval technology, exploring how national defense tested the two countries’ commitment to individual rights and the free market. Katherine C. Epstein deftly sets out Pollen’s and Isherwood’s pioneering achievements, the patent questions raised, the geopolitical rivalry between Britain and the United States, and the legal precedents each country developed to control military tools built by private contractors.
 
Epstein’s account reveals that long before the US national security state sought to restrict information about atomic energy, it was already embroiled in another contest between innovation and secrecy. The America portrayed in this sweeping and accessible history isn’t yet a global hegemon but a rising superpower ready to acquire foreign technology by fair means or foul—much as it accuses China of doing today.

"“A rigorous overview of tensions that emerged between militaries and defense contractors over intellectual property law in the early twentieth century. . . . Epstein peppers her catalogue of stolen inventions and legal disputes with evocative firsthand accounts.”" - Publishers Weekly

"“[An] exhaustive technical and legal history of fire control systems used by navies on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 20th century. . . . 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.”" - Library Journal

"“We are in a machine learning arms race to fashion digital computers to emulate analog brainwork that can exceed human capacity. But this is not the first time that analog brain emulators have transformed warfare. In a story straight out of a cyberpunk novel, Epstein shows us how the US Navy pirated Britain’s successful ‘Argo system’ in World War I, helped airbrush out its inventors, used secret patents to control it, and then built America’s first military industrial complex. Necessary reading for anyone who wants to understand the shotgun wedding that joined technology to the military state.”" - Scott Reynolds Nelson, author of Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World