This talk, which stems from Professor Kate Epstein’s current book project, charts a new genealogy for the secrecy regime that characterizes the modern US national-security state. Epstein argues that this regime did not originate with wartime mid-century nuclear secrecy, but arose during the first half of the 20th century as a result of tensions between the government and defense contractors over the control of sensitive scientific and technological information embodied in advanced weapons technology. Legal techniques that began as tools to resolve conflicts between the security-minded government and profit-minded contractors at the expense of liberal property norms then migrated to contexts far removed from weapons procurement, thereby obscuring their political-economic origins.

Epstein is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Camden, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in military, diplomatic, and US history, and in the philosophy of history. Her first book, Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain (2014), examines the relationship between national security and intellectual property through the lens of torpedo development before World War I.

The Economic History Workshop (EHW) is a monthly seminar series for Princeton students and faculty interested in the study of economic history. Co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance, the workshop provides a forum for scholars to present their findings and receive feedback on their research in a wide array of subfields, such as financial, business, labor, legal, intellectual, technological, and social history. Open to faculty, scholars, and students of Princeton University, Rutgers University, and the Institute for Advanced Study.