Military-Industrial Complex

This booklet provides a thorough analysis of a set of relationships central to American history in the latter 20th century, which entered popular discourse in a phrase used by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address of 1961-the military-industrial complex. Roland begins with an overview of U.S. industry and the military between World War I and the 1990s. He then focuses on five transformations: civil-military relations, relations between industry and the state, among government agencies, between scientific-technical communities and the state, and between technology and society. The booklet concludes with a bibliographic essay that addresses the salient literature and identifies areas of controversy among historians.

Alex Roland is professor of history at Duke University, where he teaches military history and the history of technology. He is a past preisdent of the Society for the History of Technology. His books include Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail (1978); Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (1985); and, with Richard Preston and Sidney Wise, Men in Arms: A History of Warefare and Its Interrelationships with Western Society (5th ed., 1991).