For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in developing major technologies that drive the modern economy and underpin its prosperity. Linda Weiss attributes the U.S. capacity for transformative innovation to the strength of its national security state, a complex of agencies, programs, and hybrid arrangements that has developed around the institution of permanent defense preparedness and the pursuit of technological supremacy. In America Inc.? she examines how that complex emerged and how it has evolved in response to changing geopolitical threats and domestic political constraints, from the Cold War period to the post-9/11 era.

Weiss focuses on state-funded venture capital funds, new forms of technology procurement by defense and security-related agencies, and innovation in robotics, nanotechnology, and renewable energy since the 1980s. Weiss argues that the national security state has been the crucible for breakthrough innovations, a catalyst for entrepreneurship and the formation of new firms, and a collaborative network coordinator for private-sector initiatives. Her book appraises persistent myths about the military-commercial relationship at the core of the National Security State. Weiss also discusses the implications for understanding U.S. capitalism, the American state, and the future of American primacy as financialized corporations curtail investment in manufacturing and innovation.

Linda Weiss is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. She is the author of The Myth of the Powerless State, also from Cornell, and coeditor most recently of Developmental Politics in Transition: The Neoliberal Era and Beyond.

While America Inc.? is not a book for those desiring a normative critique of US policy, it is, instead, an invaluable analytical explanation as to how the US has been preeminent in its inexorable innovative drive to achieve and maintain its defense primacy. As such, Weiss lays out a forceful challenge to the traditional conceptualization of the US as a paradigmatic liberal capitalist state.

This dense, powerful volume offers profound insights into the U.S. innovation system and its driving forces....It deserves close attention from anyone with an interest in innovation or America's place at the technological frontier.