Transistorized State: The Technique of Hegemony in the Early Cold War

Abstract

The history of the transistor contributes to reassessments of the origins of us hegemony in the 1940s and 1950s. Areas of conflict emerged between us capital and the American state during the World War ii and in the immediate postwar years. Because the transistor evolved as a direct consequence of state investment during these years, the transistor’s history illuminates tensions over military spending and defense production, and the ways in which mnc s, academia, and the state overcame tension in the establishment of hegemony.