Skip to main content

The "Military-Industrial Complex" at Fifty

We mentioned here earlier that the Spring 2011 number of Enterprise & Society was a special issue offering new perspectives on "the military-industrial complex." The occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of President Dwight Eisenhower's speech of January 17, 1961, in which he used the phrase, has occasioned a number of publications and commentaries. The speech itself is available as a video here and as a transcript here. The National Archives also has a video discussing the writing of the speech. The Eisenhower Institute held a commemorative event, which can be seen on video.
   Two recent journalistic treatments of the subject have also recently appeared: William Hartung, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2010) and James Ledbetter, Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Yale University Press, 2011). The books were jointly reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and in The Statesman; the two authors participated in a conference at the New School, "The Military-Industrial Complex Revisited: Eisenhower's Warning at 50," which can be viewed as a video. Hartung can be seen discussing his book in an interview by Book TV; Ledbetter can be heard on a "Marketplace" radio interview.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Exchange has moved to the BHC's website

  Dear members subscribers of The Exchange   The Exchange, the weblog of the BHC, is now part of our website ( https://thebhc.org ). We migrated the blog to serve our membership and interested parties best since Blogger is discontinuing its email service.   Note that this will be the last message we will send from Blogger .   The Exchange was founded by Pat Denault over a decade ago, and it has become an essential channel for announcements from and about the BHC and from our subscribers and members. Announcements from The Exchange will come up on the News section of our website as they did before. However, if you wish to receive these announcements via email, and you have not done so yet, please subscribe to The Exchange by: Going to our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org ), s crolling down to the end of the page, and clicking on "Subscribe to the Latest BHC News." Or go to the “News” section of our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org/ ),   and click on...
Read more

Wilfried Feldenkirchen (1947-2010)

With sadness we report the death of longtime BHC member Wilfried Feldenkirchen.  He died in  a car accident on June 21, 2010, while test driving a replica of Siemens' 1905 electric car, the Victoria , a project for which he was the manager.  He was professor of economic, social, and business history in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.  A former trustee of the BHC and a member of the editorial board of Enterprise & Society , Professor Dr. Feldenkirchen specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century corporate and financial history, focusing particularly on Siemens. In addition to numerous articles and essays, his works include: The Banks and the Steel Industry in the Ruhr: Developments in Relations from 1874 to 1914 (1981) Werner von Siemens: Inventor and International Entrepreneur (1994) Siemens, 1918-1945 (1999) Siemens: From Workshop to Global Player (2000) "Vom Guten das Beste": Von Daimler und Be...
Read more

Tomorrow: Webinar -- COVID-19, debt monetization, and lessons from war financing

Webinar COVID-19, debt monetization, and lessons from war financing by Harold James With introductions by Markus Brunnermeier, Director of the Princeton Bendheim Center for Finance Event Details Friday, April 24 12:30 PM ET Space is limited, pre-registration is required. A Zoom link will be emailed to those who register early the morning of the event. The Zoom webinar room will open to attendees five minutes before the webinar begins. On Friday, April 24 at 12:30 PM ET, Harold James will join the Princeton Bendheim Center for Finance for a webinar on the history of war financing and lessons for COVID-19. James is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University. The event will begin with a brief discussion by Markus Brunnermeier, Director of the Princeton Bendheim Center for Finance. James will then present. Both Brunnermeier and James will take questions from the audience throughout the event. Visit the COVID-19 webinar series page for all u...
Read more