Technology,science and American innovation

This article offers for consideration four propositions about business, government, and innovation in the post-World War Two United States, points which may have a wider resonance as well. They concern the long term role of continuous innovation, technology–science relationships, state-led problem setting for innovation, and the ‘permanent uncertainties’ that arise from Cold War-era technological advance. Each of these has implications for the practice of business history, for conceptualizing innovation, and for our understanding of post-war science–technology trajectories.