The book is an extremely valuable, comprehensive and trusted source of information about all principal aspects and many details of the radar before and in time of the WWII, except one minor aspect. This is the pre-war history of radar R&D in the USSR. The author cites only one reference - a book by a Soviet general M. Lobanov, who supervised the gun laying radar developments in the 1930s, written in 1975. Still it is clear that the author could not read Russian and so had the book translated by someone. It looks like not all the book was translated or read, because too many facts, names and organizations are twisted, mixed up and simply omitted. This old Sovet book gives much better vision and proper names and facts than those reproduced by L. Brown. Still today exist other sources on this topic. In some sad way, the mentioned deficiency continues long tradition in the English-centered literature of neglecting and not accurate using the information available about the radar in the USSR even if it is scarce. The tradition started when someone in America in 1944 made a capital error in the name of one of two Russians who measured a real cavity magnetron in 1937 and published it in 1940 (in Russian) - correct name Malyarov or Maliarov was twisted and printed as "Malairov". And so, forever in English/USA publications the poor guy is "Malairov". L. Brown, in similar way, twisted the history of the research radar Zenit and presented it in a most sardonic way as an example of the worst radar development existed at that moment. I am not going to discuss this in details. I'd like only to note that, first, in the mentioned boook of Gen. Lobanov the story of Zenit is given with great sympathy and his evaluation of that achievement is clearly highly positive, at least at the time of 1938-39 testing. Second, the subsequent failure of the project was not a result of bad engineering, as it is presented by L. Brown, but rather of the Orwellian circumstances of the Soviet life in the late 1930s. The story of Zenit can be read in A.A. Kostenko, et al., "Development of the first Soviet three-coordinate L-band pulsed radar in Kharkov before WWII", IEEE Antennas Propagat. Magazine, 2001, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 28-49. I hope that this story and proper names of people and organizations, and also principal facts, will be presented in better way when, if ever, this book is published as a next edition.

In A Radar History of World War II, physicist Louis Brown recounts the little-known history of a technology that may very well have been the difference between a free world and a Nazi-dominated one. The book provides very painstaking details and is unique in that it describes the technology that existed within the societies of all major combatants: Americans, British, Germans, Russians, and Japanese. It is also a good primer on the basics of radar that can be understood by the layman.

However, the book is long and tedious. Although the science can be understood by a layman, I can personally attest that it is rough going. Although Brown recounts some interesting anecdotes, it is clear that he is a scientist first and a writer second. As a result, this book is unlikely to appeal to a mass audience. That being said, A Radar History of World War II is a rewarding read for those with the necessary stamina. If you're a scientist or an engineer, feel free to add a star or two to my rating.

The story of the development atomic bomb finally had its complete chronicle in 1995 with the Richard Rhodes book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." Rhodes is unmatched as an explainer of difficult concepts; he is even better at describing the personalities who made the discoveries that led to the Bomb. More importantly his skill made the book as good a read as any Tom Clancy novel.

Louis Brown attempts to do the same for Radar during World War II. The good news is that this book has the sweep and depth of anything Rhodes has done. If anything it's even more complete. As a fan of the history of technology I've finally found the single source book on WWII radar. As of now this book has become the definitive work on the subject. If you are interested in the topic you have to read this book.

Authors of the history technology need a rare combination of divergent skills to write a good technical history; an understanding and passion for the subject, dogged research skills for those subjects that were once classified, and the ability to tell a captivating story.

Brown is as good as they get for understanding and passion. His description of German and Japanese radar boggle the mind. The sad part is that as a writer Brown is simply no match for Rhodes. What could have been a sweeping epic that popularized the subject ends up being a tedious list of facts of interest only to the few passionate about the subject. The book veers between a mind-numbing list of radar types (with an awesome bibliography, stunning index yet it has no timelines, radar order of battle, or any coherent summary of the mass of data presented), it is interspersed with personal rambling asides, punctuated by bursts of interesting exposition and great insight. This book could have used a very good editor and some night classes on writing. Instead it looks like it got a spell-checking program.

This book is such a valuable resource that I urge the author to find a co-author and put out a revised second edition.