The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America by Paul N. Edwards

Abstract

1008 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Dr. Randolph, a historian whose research and teaching have focused on science and technology in the USSR, is president of the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, in Washington, D.C. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. By Paul N. Edwards. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996. Pp· xx+428; illustrations, tables, notes. $40.00 (cloth). This challenging work offers a bold interpretation of the philo­ sophical underpinnings of digital computing. Eschewing the re­ ceived “canonical” treatments of economic historians and com­ puter scientists, Paul Edwards substitutes an interpretation grounded in the theories of discourse elaborated by his mentor, in­ tellectual historian Donna Haraway. Edwards believes digital computing emerged from the doctrine of command, communications, and control as articulated by military planners during World War II and the early years of the cold war. Faced with the prospect of nuclear annihilation, these planners imagined an intricate feedback system that would process informa­ tion about foreign attacks and respond automatically. Theirs was a neat, “closed” world. Digital computing, with its rigid logic gov­ erned by feedback routines, complemented the goals of the military planners. Through massive programs such as the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) antiaircraft defense system, comput­ ers provided the military with a practical tool that could seemingly transform its thinking from ideal to reality. SAGE and several succes­ sor programs, funded under budgets swollen by cold war anxieties, pumped resources into computing during the early fifties, ultimately inculcating the nascent discipline with the values of command and control. Digital computing thus took on the attributes of a closed world of its own rather than serving as the liberating technology it might have been. Later, the disciplines of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology helped perpetuate the symbiosis between com­ puting, command, and control. Each constituted a “closed world” in which small groups of practitioners, funded in large part by the military, tried to reduce the complexities of human thinking and emotions to mechanistic feedback routines that could be emulated by computer. As Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers demonstrated so memorably more than three decades ago in the film Dr. Strangelove, closed worlds such as those depicted by Edwards can readily be made to seem absurd. Viewed from outside, their simplifying assumptions about humanity appear callous if not horrid, and their faith in the ability to achieve technical perfection seems wildly naive. In high­ lighting these particular discourses, then, Edwards inevitably infuses his work with the dark gloom of wasteful tragedy. (The dustjacket, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1009 fittingly, shows technicians seated at terminals in the hazy blue light ofan anti-missle control center.) In his hands the history ofcomput­ ing becomes a story of lost opportunity, of possibilities foreclosed or at least long delayed by devotion to misguided ideals. Is this correct? Does the discourse Edwards so cleverly assembles and deciphers accurately capture the history of digital computing? There is ample cause for doubt. For in constructing his narrative, Edwards has fallen into the same trap as his subjects: he portrays as all-encompassing what is in fact a highly selective, closed world. Significandy, Edwards is most effective when writing about the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, where he can concentrate on small groups or even specific individuals who left a record of ideas in published works and transcripts. One must ask, however, how important these narrowly circumscribed intellec­ tual communities have been in the development of digital comput­ ing. Of course, Edwards offers these studies in an effort to further illustrate the influence of a type of thinking he associates with the military. This is an institution of substantial reach, and certainly no one familiar with the history ofcomputing would deny that it played a significant role. (Indeed, some readers of this volume might criti­ cize Edwards for merely repackaging what historians such as Ken­ neth Flamm and Arthur Norberg have already written.) But a grow­ ing body of literature by scholars such as James Cortada, JoAnne Yates, and Emerson Pugh demonstrates convincingly that the roots of computing run deep into the private sector as well. To be sure, important antecedents...