Rumors of War And Infernal Machines ─ Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American And British Speculative Fiction

This provocative and unique work reveals the remarkably influential role of futuristic literature on contemporary political power in America. Tracing this phenomenon from its roots in Victorian Britain, Gannon convincingly demonstrates that military fiction anticipated and even influenced the evolution of the tank, the development of the airplane, and also the bitter political battles within Britain's War Office and the Admiralty. In the United States, future-fictions and Cold-War thrillers were an officially acknowledged factor in the Pentagon's R&D agendas, and often gave rise_and shape_to the strategic development of technologies as diverse as automation, atomic weaponry, aerospace vehicles, and Star Wars. With its detailed political, historical, and literary analysis of the American and European fascination with hi-tech warfare, this lively, informative, and revealing study will appeal to students, general readers, literary and cultural scholars, and military and history enthusiasts.

Charles E. Gannon is associate professor of English at St. Bonaventure University.