Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant (2002)

A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II

This is a very well researched and fascinating story unfortunately embedded among lots mundane details. It's definitely worth reading, though, especially if you're interested in science, technology, history, and/or life among the super wealthy.

The three things I can add to the  reviews already on the Internet, from an engineer's point of view, are:

Motivation (p. 187)
Science, technology, and innovation make their greatest strides when there is enough motivation. Before 1941, there was almost no American interest in radar, but the British were already fighting for their lives and making strides in the technology. Once America got involved and got motivated, however, the technology advanced and became mass producible the Allies gained a significant competitive advantage over the Germans.

The Radar program showed what could be accomplished with government-funded R&D and R&D has been a large part of defense spending ever since--but has it been as productive? Look at missile defense. Without an immediate threat, like before 1941, it seems like the US is taking a long time to build a reliable missile defense system. Israel, on the other hand, is facing an immediate threat, like Britain in 1941, and has independently developed Iron Dome, their own working, battle-proven missile defense system.

Requirements (p. 256)
There has always been a tendency for requirements specifications to omit the purpose or usage of the functionality. Engineers can implement the letter of the requirement, but with no knowledge of how the thing is going to be used, they don't always implement what the specifier really had in mind.

The radar developers had that problem with the specifications they got from the military. We still have that problem. It's especially prevalent in software engineering. Software developers can create a system that meets the requirements and passes acceptance testing, but still not do what the requester had in mind.

Start Ups (p. 261)
It seems that small companies have always been the better choice for developing something new. They are simpler, faster, and more eager for success than bloated established companies who are more interested in keeping the status quo and promoting their established ways and means. For this reason, early radar developers, tired of big companies re-engineering their designs, switched to using smaller companies.

And this still happens today. Look at the role of Silicon Valley start-ups. Contrast the early days of Microsoft and Apple to today. Look at today's giant government contractors taking forever to develop new weapons, air traffic, and accounting systems. Contrast that to all the new inventions that keep out of small startups.

Lee DuBridge (p. 284)
And here's an interesting quote from Lee DuBridge, the founding director of the MIT Radar Lab:
Radar won the War; the atom bomb ended it.

References
Jennet Conant. Tuxedo Park. 2002. Simon & Shuster.
Amazon. Tuxedo Park. web. 2013.