MacKenzie has taken on two tasks: a history of missile guidance and a demonstration that technological change does not have an inevitable track. He describes this book as historical sociology: historical because it follows the dominant form of social research on weapons technology--the weapons system case study--and sociology because technological change is simultaneously economic, political, organizational, cultural, and legal.

Missile guidance, and its direct descendant accuracy, has been a critical technology from the earliest V2 rockets to today’s MX. In choosing to follow a technology rather than a particular weapon system, MacKenzie provides an interesting window into the long, complex interrelations among politics, nuclear thinking, strategy, technology, and competition among the armed services. The change from counter-city targeting (the infamous mutual assured destruction, MAD) to counter-force targeting (the destruction of missiles in their silos) emerges as the dominant political issue of the period.

A lengthy history of gyroscope technology introduces Charles Stark Draper, a towering figure throughout this story. As great as his technical achievements were, his most valuable gifts may have been his persuasive powers in seeking funds, his knowledge of powerful people, and an ability to deliver on his promises. In 1970, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory was renamed the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in his honor.

The history of both land-based and submarine missiles is viewed through the lens of accuracy, culminating in the development of the “beryllium baby,” the inertial measurement unit of the MX missile (the advanced inertial reference sphere, AIRS). While the beryllium baby could land a plane within one foot after a one-hour flight, such accuracy is only needed for destroying missiles in silos. It is ironic that this impressive technical achievement essentially undermined the MX politically because it constitutes a first-strike mentality, which is anathema to America’s self-image.

Although the data are more sparse, a chapter on Soviet missile guidance and accuracy is illuminating. In both the US and Soviet programs, novel forms of gyroscopes and accelerometers are absent. Both programs concentrated instead on continuous improvement of traditional designs. Soviet designs differ from those of the US, and not because they are inferior. Soviet engineers have achieved their own stunning accuracy despite using different gyroscopes and different guidance mathematics. They use more redundancy and seem to distrust complex software and sophisticated algorithms, favoring hardware solutions instead.

The last two chapters develop a major theme of the book--that technological development does not have a natural, inevitable direction. For example, Mackenzie points out that people often assume (incorrectly) that the MX is guided by laser gyros because they are the latest thing. Laser gyros are currently confined to commercial aircraft, where they are prized for low price and reliability, not accuracy.

However deeply technology is examined, there does not appear to be an “ultimate sphere of basic facts” insulated from politics or organizational conflict. The plasticity of assumptions allows the same arguments to be used both to defend and to attack. The same missile accuracy can be used to argue in favor of manned bombers, for larger missile warheads, or even for or against the MX and its hard target kill capability.

MacKenzie is clearly more at home with history and politics than with the workings of gyroscopes. He provides many interesting pictures and drawings, but without much explanation, so their complexity prevents the reader from learning much. To be fair, however, explanations would require another book. Almost one-third of every page is taken up with footnotes, and while they admirably document his research, I found the layout distracting. Surprisingly, Mackenzie does not seem to need classified data. The usual trick of relative accuracy, with occasional absolutes, more than suffices to support the book’s arguments.

This book skewers the notion that missile accuracy is a natural or inevitable consequence of technological change. Rather, it is a complex process involving politics, aggressive marketing by technologists, and a mix of corporations and laboratories. As well as debunking what might be a well-accepted myth, this book should remind us that we control our own destiny, especially in the nuclear arena.