Pieces of the Action

“Scientific and technological progress depend crucially on leadership. Bush understood this better than anyone, and he had a front-row seat to the most important R&D work of the 20th century. This candid memoir gave me a better understanding of how research leadership works and why it’s desperately needed.”
—Jason Crawford, writer at The Roots of Progress

“Pieces of the Action provides a window into the way Bush saw himself―not as a great man or leader, but as part of a larger cultural tradition, equipping new generations with knowledge from past ones. I came away encouraged and inspired by the knowledge that great things can be built in spite of stagnation, rigid norms, and conventions, through the determination and foresight of people who work to change institutions―and build new ones, too.”
—Saloni Dattani, cofounder and editor of Works in Progress and researcher at Our World in Data

“Pieces of the Action is not just about science and innovation, it’s about state capacity. Anyone who longs for renewed, effective institutions will find the wisdom of a kindred spirit reflecting on how to build them.”
—Eli Dourado, economist and senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University

“It’s hard to deny that Vannevar Bush was at the nexus of an astounding number of people and events that shaped the modern world. In Pieces of the Action, he works hard to give us a window into his thought processes, and from them distill timeless lessons about leadership, research, institution building, and human nature. Bush was a scientist, a statesman, an entrepreneur, a tinkerer, a leader, an educator, and an excellent storyteller, and Pieces of the Action has a yarn and a lesson for everyone.”
—Ben Reinhardt, CEO of PARPA, researcher at the Astera Institute, and host of the Idea Machines podcast

“Pieces of the Action catalogs the scientists and engineers who were pivotal to an Allied victory in World War II―and how the ad-hoc organizations born out of that crisis ultimately provided the blueprints for our modern scientific institutions. If you want to understand the ‘man in the arena’ at the center of it all, this discursive, blunt, and often funny memoir is the best place to start.”
—Alec Stapp, cofounder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress

“Written without pretension. . . this volume will richly reward readers from a wide variety of fields―science, engineering, industry, education, the military, politics, and public and business administration.”
—Irvin Stewart, Science

“Pieces of the Action is an often-whimsical ride through time and the mind of the man whose insight, strategic instincts, and institutional empire-building formed the basis of the modern scientific state. One comes away with a view of scientific development that is anything but linear: the gravitational weight of historical contingencies, idiosyncratic personnel, and key management decisions described in Pieces of the Action continue to profoundly impact us today.”
—Caleb Watney, cofounder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress