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 - "the Pentagon"s brain." 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 twenty-four-hour video surveillance, DARPA is responsible for innovations that have changed the course of war, national security, and strategic planning at the highest levels. Thousands of scientists and engineers have been engaged for decades in a technological arms race, using battlegrounds to test their science. The results have changed the way we...