About the Author

Alex Roland is professor of history at Duke University, where he teaches military history and the history of technology. He is a past preisdent of the Society for the History of Technology. His books include Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail (1978); Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (1985); and, with Richard Preston and Sidney Wise, Men in Arms: A History of Warefare and Its Interrelationships with Western Society (5th ed., 1991).