War in the Age of Intelligent Machines

In the aftermath of the methodical destruction of Iraq during the Persian
Gulf War, the power and efficiency of new computerized weapons and surveillance
technology have become chillingly apparent. For Manuel DeLanda, however, this new
weaponry has a significance that goes far beyond military applications; he shows how
it represents a profound historical shift in the relation of human beings both to
machines and to information. The recent emergence of intelligent and autonomous
bombs and missiles equipped with artificial perception and decision-making
capabilities is, for Delanda, part of a much larger transfer of cognitive structures
from humans to machines in the late twentieth century.War in the Age of Intelligent
Machines provides a rich panorama of these astonishing developments; it details the
mutating history of information analysis and machinic organization from the mobile
siege artillery of the Renaissance, the clockwork armies of the Thirty Years War,
the Napoleonic campaigns, and the Nazi blitzkrieg up to present-day cybernetic
battle-management systems and satellite reconnaissance networks. Much more than a
history of warfare, DeLanda's account is an unprecedented philosophical and
historical reflection on the changing forms through which human bodies and materials
are combined, organized, deployed, and made effective.Manuel DeLanda has published
essays on philosophy and film theory. He is a computer programmer and a film
artist.A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books