Awards
- Winner of American Society of Mechanical Engineers Engineer-Historian Award 2002.
- Winner of American Society of Mechanical Engineers Engineer-Historian Award 2004 (United States)
- Winner of American Society of Mechanical Engineers Engineer-Historian Award 2004.
Overview
Navies have always been technologically sophisticated, from the ancient world's trireme galleys and the Age of Sail's ships-of-the-line to the dreadnoughts of World War I and today's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. Yet each large technical innovation has met with resistance and even hostility from those officers who, adhering to a familiar warrior ethos, have grown used to a certain style of fighting. In Technological Change and the United States Navy, William M. McBride examines how the navy dealt with technological change-from the end of the Civil War through the ""age of the battleship""-as technology became more complex and the nation assumed a global role. Although steam engines generally made their mark in the maritime world by 1865, for example, and proved useful to the Union riverine navy during the Civil War, a backlash within the service later developed against both steam engines and the engineers who ran them. Early in the twentieth century the large dreadnought battleship at first met similar resistance from some officers, including the famous Alfred Thayer Mahan, and their industrial and political allies. During the first half of the twentieth century the battleship exercised a dominant influence on those who developed the nation's strategies and operational plans-at the same time that advances in submarines and fixed-wing aircraft complicated the picture and undermined the battleship's superiority. In any given period, argues McBride, some technologies initially threaten the navy's image of itself. Professional jealousies and insecurities, ignorance, and hidebound traditions arguably influenced the officer corps on matters of technology as much as concerns about national security, and McBride contends that this dynamic persists today. McBride also demonstrates the interplay between technological innovation and other influences on naval adaptability-international commitments, strategic concepts, government-industrial relations, and the constant influence of domestic politics. Challenging technological determinism, he uncovers the conflicting attitudes toward technology that guided naval policy between the end of the Civil War and the dawning of the nuclear age. The evolution and persistence of the ""battleship navy,"" he argues, offer direct insight into the dominance of the aircraft-carrier paradigm after 1945 and into the twenty-first century.
Full Product Details
Author: William M. McBride (U.S. Naval Academy)
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Volume: 27
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.10cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.544kg
ISBN: 9780801898181
ISBN 10: 0801898188
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 10 December 2010
Recommended Age: From 17
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand 
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Table of Contents
"Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Postbellum Naval Profession: From Discord to Amalgamation 2. Competing for Control: Line Officers, Engineers, and the Technological Exemplar of the Battleship Paradigm 3. Refining the Technological Ideal: The Simsian Uproar, Engineer Bashing, and the All-Big-Gun Battleship 4. Technological Trajectory: Geostrategic Design Criteria, Turboelectric Propulsion, and Naval-Industrial Relations 5. Anomalous Technologies of the Great War: Airplanes, Submarines, and the Professional Status Quo 6. Controlling Aviation after the World War: The 1924 Special Board and the Technological Ceiling for Aviation 7. Disarmament, Depression, and Politics: Technological Momentum and the Unstable Dynamics of the Hoover-Roosevelt Years 8. War and a Shifting Technological Paradigm: Fast Task Forces and ""Three-Plane"" Warfare 9. Castles of Steel: Technological Change and the Modern Navy Notes Note on Sources Index"
Reviews
This masterly study of the interaction between technological change and service politics in the U.S. Navy deserves to become a standard work. - Sir Michael Howard, former Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford University This fine study explores the dynamics through which American naval officers have interacted with technological change. - Journal of Military History An intellectual history of American naval technology that examines the dominance of the battleship mentality... Thought-provoking, a book sure to spark debate. - Technology and Culture One could say this is yet another book about the rise and fall of the battleship as the centerpiece of naval power. But what sets the author's subtle work apart from earlier histories is his purpose. He sets out neither to defame nor defend naval leaders... [A] well-balanced analysis. - U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
An intellectual history of American naval technology that examines the dominance of the battleship mentality... Thought-provoking, a book sure to spark debate. -- Robert J. Schneller, Jr. Technology and Culture One could say this is yet another book about the rise and fall of the battleship as the centerpiece of naval power. But what sets the author's subtle work apart from earlier histories is his purpose. He sets out neither to defame nor defend naval leaders. Do not expect to find even the most obvious troglodyte of an admiral belittled in this text... [A] well-balanced analysis. -- Michael A. Palmer U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings An excellent survey of how the U.S. Navy adapted to changing technology, and how technological change in turn shaped the Navy. New York Military Affairs Symposium Newsletter McBride examines the tendency of military institutions to favour stability over radical innovations... Well researched and clearly written. -- Christopher Bell Northern Mariner Well written, easy to read, and ultimately leads the reader to think about the larger issues of technological change. -- Steve R. Waddell History: Reviews of New Books This fine study explores the dynamics through which American naval officers have interacted with technological change. -- James C. Bradford Journal of Military History
Author Information
Author Website: http://www.usna.edu/History/facultymcbride.htm
William M. McBride is a professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy and former inaugural Shaeffer Distinguished Humanist at James Madison University.
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Author Website: http://www.usna.edu/History/facultymcbride.htm
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