Making jet engines in World War II : Britain, Germany, and the United States

Our stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. With __Making Jet Engine____s__ __in World War II__, Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology. Giffard compares the approaches of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own war aims and industrial expertise. Germany, which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines. Britain, on the other hand, produced relatively few engines—but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs. The US emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production. Taken together, Giffard's work makes a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product. Making jet engines sets out a new account of the central features of invention in the twentieth-century. It shows the consequences of the proposed model by giving a radically new history of the jet engine’s earliest years in Germany, Britain and the United States. By beginning with production, the book’s very structure challenges the traditional way of telling stories of invention. A key change that the book makes is to focus on production and on industry - in other words, to look at jet engines from the perspective of a nation trying to build jet engines for service use. It shows that the jet engine, far from an act of individual genius, was part of Britain’s very modern and industrial, high-tech war effort. In Germany, in contrast, it argues that the jet engine was adopted primarily to ease production requirements rather than as a superior weapon. The jet engines that were deployed during the Second World War emerged from the aero-engine industry, and the jet engine was shaped by the expertise of the firms that produced it. Only some information reached the public about the invention, however, and the public made a particular story from that, which fit the contemporary needs of Britain, Germany and the United States. In offering a new account of invention (and exploring how we tell stories about invention), the book provokes and seeks to answer questions about the historiography of invention including the role of individuals and of uncertainty in technical change Our stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and breakthroughs. With Making Jet Engine s in World War II , Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology. Giffard compares the approaches of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own war aims and industrial expertise. Germany, which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines. Britain, on the other hand, produced relatively few engines—but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs. The US emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production. Taken together, Giffard's work makes a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product.