The Pentagon’s Brain

Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and scope--has expanded enormously with each passing year. From Agent Orange in Vietnam to insect-sized drones in use today, from the earliest networked computers and the Internet to smart rockets and war zones under 24-hour video surveillance, DARPA is responsible for innovations that have changed the course of war, national security, and strategic planning at the highest levels. To uncover the secret history of DARPA in action, journalist Annie Jacobsen tracked down key players in DARPA's Smart Weapons Program, past and present; neuroscientists building an artificial brain, cell biologists working on limb regeneration, the Nobel laureate who invented the laser.

Prize history

• Pulitzer Prize for History

  2016

  Finalist