The Long Arm of Moore's Law

Mody takes us inside Moore's Law to show us how progress in computing has been produced across decades through a complex intertwining of technological, government, academic, and corporate institutions. Evoking vivid stories of people and organizations, he uses the production and reproduction of Moore's Law as a lens into new understandings of the civilianization of computing and the reorganization of science in the US.

Sarah Kaplan, Professor of Strategic Management, Rotman School, University of Toronto; coauthor of Creative Destruction

This book undertakes an ambitious project—to frame the history of American scientific and engineering research in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries through the unlikely lens of microelectronics. The Long Arm of Moore's Law frames our understanding of the trajectories of American (and global) science across the Cold War and post-Cold War divide with a sweeping perspective. A joy to read.

Hyungsub Choi, Assistant Professor, School of Liberal Arts, Seoul National University of Science and Technology

Mody's book offers a wide range of important issues providing food for thought on the R&D behind our modern systems. Amid the different models of innovation, and approaches to technology management, civilianisation was as pertinent to the advent of semiconductors as it is today.

New Scientist

In his excellent The Long Arm of Moore's Law, Cyrus Mody examines how academic and corporate researchers concerned with electronics have been buffeted by the changing gales of the semiconductor industry and its technologies from the 1970s to the present as it has realized Moore's Law. More particularly, Mody carefully charts how these researchers and their military and government patrons have continually changed tack in response to this, as well as to other shifting currents in culture, politics, and the economy.

Technology and Culture