cover image Profits of Science: The American Marriage of Business and Technology

Profits of Science: The American Marriage of Business and Technology

Robert Teitelman. Basic Books, $23 (258pp) ISBN 978-0-465-03983-8

The playfulness of the title is flattened by the weight of the macroeconomic analysis that underlies Teitelman's thesis that there exists a pattern of interaction between technological innovation and capital formation in post-WW II America, with the source of financing determining how the technology will be utilized. A business journalist and author of Gene Dreams , he focuses on three technologies of the 1950s and '60s that sprang from academic wartime research: microelectronics, clinical pharmaceuticals and television. The implicit premise that the American ``marriage'' of science and manufacturing techonology--officiated by capital--has its own character has been overlooked in recent examinations of postwar Japanese and German business performance. The historical pattern that Teitelman pursues, citing the company histories of Syntex, RCA, Texas Instruments and others, is difficult to prove with three or so case industries. Yet the issue of expanding technologies has rarely seemed so compelling in American history and Teitelman offers convincing evidence that such an economic grail exists--and holds our future. (Feb.)