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Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex
Yale University Press
January 2011
On Sale: January 17, 2011
280 pages
ISBN: 0300153058
EAN: 9780300153057
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In Dwight D. Eisenhowerβs last speech as president, on January 17, 1961, he warned America about the βmilitary-industrial complex,β a mutual dependency between the nationβs industrial base and its military structure that had developed during World War II. After the conflict ended, the nation did not abandon its wartime economy but rather the opposite. Military spending has steadily increased, giving rise to one of the key ideas that continues to shape our countryβs political landscape. In this book, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Eisenhowerβs farewell address, journalist James Ledbetter shows how the government, military contractors, and the nationβs overall economy have become inseparable. Some of the effects are beneficial, such as cell phones, GPS systems, the Internet, and the Hubble Space Telescope, all of which emerged from technologies first developed for the military. But the military-industrial complex has also provoked agonizing questions. Does our massive military establishmentβbigger than those of the next ten largest combinedβreally make us safer? How much of our perception of security threats is driven by the profit-making motives of military contractors? To what extent is our foreign policy influenced by contractorsβ financial interests? Ledbetter uncovers the surprising origins and the even more surprising afterlife of the military-industrial complex, an idea that arose as early as the 1930s, and shows how it gained traction during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam era and continues even today.
 Media BuzzOn Point - January 17, 2011
Marketplace - PRI - January 17, 2011
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