Invention of Torpedoes

Warfare

History Hit

History

4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

When the self-propelled torpedo was invented in the late 19th century, it threatened to revolutionize naval warfare. The weapon was instrumental in the wars of the 20th century, but also within the spheres of the global marketplace, government control and intellectual property. In this episode, Katherine Epstein, author of ‘Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain’, discusses the development of this lethal weapon in relation to military, legal and business history.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone welcome back to the history hit warfare podcast I'm your host James
0:03.4	Rogers and in this episode we have Professor Kate Epstein from Rutgers University in
0:07.9	the United States the other week we had Ian Johnson on the podcast telling us
0:11.4	about how useless torpedoes were during the First World War.
0:15.7	Well Kate is an expert in torpedoes. She's literally written the book on it.
0:19.4	Torpedoes, inventing the military industrial complex in the United States in Great Britain.
0:25.0	By blending military legal and business history with the history of science and technology,
0:30.6	Kate recasts the role of naval power in the run up to the First World War and
0:35.2	exposes how national security can clash with property rights in the modern era
0:40.0	to influence the development of torpedoes.
0:43.0	Basically, Kate takes us all the way back to the origins of that military industrial complex
0:49.0	that Eisenhower warned us about in the 50s. Enjoy. Hi Kate, how you doing today?
1:08.2	Hi Kate, how you doing today?
1:09.7	Very well, thank you.
1:10.6	Thanks for having me on.
1:11.8	Good, good.
1:12.4	Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the
1:14.7	podcast. Now I came across your book, Torpedo, inventing the military
1:19.5	industrial complex in the United States and Great Britain, and I had to get you on the
1:24.1	podcast to discuss it because it rewrites a whole understanding of this
1:28.5	military industrial complex while providing what I found as a fascinating history of the weapon itself, the torpedo,
1:36.0	and the importance of seapower prior to the First World War.
	...

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