Blackett's War

October 22, 2012
Historian and journalist Budiansky’s newest (after Perilous Fight) is the little known history of a linchpin in the Allies’ victory over the Nazis: Patrick Blackett. At the outset of WWI, the submarine was a marginalized resource, yet it would soon prove a harbinger of the unprecedented technological developments that would characterize the efficient lethality of modern warfare. Budiansky demonstrates that at the time, the Royal Navy was less a training center for elite combatants than it was “a vocation for the sons of gentleman.” Yet Blackett, who got his first taste of battle as a teen in 1916, was the exception among the navy’s well-heeled students. Between the World Wars, he studied at Cambridge, where he developed into a brilliant physicist and became enduringly committed to left-wing politics. During WWII, he applied pragmatism and scientific acumen to the relatively new field of “operational research,” which favored data (e.g., radar) and improvisation over “tradition, prejudice, or gut feeling.” Described by a contemporary as “straightforward, leftish, Bohemian and unconventional,” Blackett had his fair share of old guard naysayers, yet in the struggle against German U-boats, the efficacy of his tactics spoke for themselves. For military history and science fans alike. Agent: Katinka Matson, Brockman Inc.