""In this penetrating history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency, Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of ""the Pentagon's brain"" from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present. This is the essential book on DARPA--a compelling narrative about the clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often jaw-dropping, futuristic, and frightening results""--Back cover.

The Cold War. The evil thing ; War games and computing machines ; Vast weapons systems of the future ; Emergency plans ; Sixteen hundred seconds until doomsday ; Psychological operations -- The Vietnam War. Techniques and gadgets ; RAND and COIN ; Command and control ; Motivation and morale ; The Jasons enter Vietnam ; The electronic fence ; The end of Vietnam -- Operations other than war. Rise of the machines ; Star Wars and tank wars ; The Gulf War and operations other than war ; Biological weapons ; Transforming humans for war -- The War on Terror. Terror strikes ; Total information awareness ; IED war ; Combat zones that see ; Human terrain -- Future war. Drone wars ; Brain wars ; The Pentagon's brain.