Structure

Abstract

I. B. Holley’s Ideas and Weapons is a relentlessly administrative history of aircraft development and production during World War I. Its cast of characters consists primarily of three-letter agencies, and its narrative is overwhelmingly concerned with the organizational structure of the military bureaucracy. On the face of it, revisiting Holley’s book should be a deadening ordeal. All the more reason to celebrate Ideas and Weapons, for it is anything but.1 Its theme, so chillingly prominent when the book was published in 1953, is vital once again. Holley’s analytical insights, particularly with regard to the role of institutional structure in shaping technological and doctrinal change in the military, continue to shape contemporary understanding of the history of military technology. Although the book is clearly a product of its time, it remains a vigorous and engaging classic. Ideas and Weapons addresses a central question: What are the forces that shape effective innovation in military technology and practice? In particular, Holley sought to investigate how emerging technological possibilities can be transformed into technological realities in the form of operationally useful weapons by examining the actions, interactions, and structure of military organizations. The book is a model of organizational simplicity, in many ways resembling a military staff study—a form that must have been familiar to Holley