From little things big things grow, composed Australian songwriters Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody in 1991. It’s not about an acorn growing into an enormous oak tree. It’s a rock protest song, based on indigenous land rights and reconciliation. From bad things good things grow. That’s the premise of Michael White’s The Fruits of War: How Military Conflict Accelerates Technology (2005). Michael White, once a member of the group, The Thompson Twins in the 1980s, is now a prolific international best-selling and prize-winning science writer.
In Fruits of War, White presents the argument to support his contention that many of our everyday items and inventions have been greatly influenced and inspired by conflicts, military needs, and weapons development. He is not advocating conflict, but argues that, from time immemorial, aggression has been a natural part of the human psyche—socially, geographically, ecologically, and physically—and that from progressions in conflict have come advancements in technology that we appreciate every day even if we did not know how they were developed.
White’s book is divided into seven easy-to-understand sections that follow the stages of development of specific inventions over time, from conflict to peace time. These include: (1) From the Gods to the Laser Scalpel; (2) From the Arrow to Nuclear Power; (3) From the Cuneiform to the Credit Card; (4) From the Chariot to the Bullet Train; (5) From the Balloon to the Space Shuttle; (6) From the Trireme to the Ocean Liner; and (7) From the Tribal Drum to the Internet. Each fascinating section contains several chapters, tracing the pathway of each invention, detailing inventors, their inspiration, and peace time uses of items once specifically designed for conflict.
White maintains that “our aggression is linked inextricably … with human creative energy.” The acceleration of technology has developed through random occurrence in battle or conflict, through research or commercial impetus, to an end result in which it is widely accepted and further modified by the military, only later to find its way into civilian life. He maintains that if the military had not initially poured inordinate amounts of funds into an idea, it may have stagnated and never have been developed—or it would have taken much longer to come to fruition. For example, defense research achievements, across many countries, have been largely responsible for our increased understanding of a diverse range and cross-fertilization of disciplines, such as human psychology, materials technology, surveillance technology, radar, satellite communications, weather monitoring systems, fibre optics, laser technology, cybernetics, and advanced fuel and transportation systems. “Good as well as evil may flow from the darkest recesses of the human soul,” White concludes.
In reading from conception to development to implementation to modification, the reader receives a greater understanding of human and conflict development. In addition, there comes the realization that the human brain is inventive, creative, and adaptive, but more so comes the awareness that almost no idea is impossible, it just might take time to develop.
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