Lots of false starts with this one. It was enjoyable, but I couldn't sustain interest for long periods. An hour or two at most and then my mind would wander.

Once again, no apology from NDGT.

As others know as well as me or better, for years, Tyson's been called out for a way in which he's NOT Carl Sagan, and that is for not calling out the links between scientists and the military-industrial complex more firmly.

John Horgan, for example, first wrote about it nearly a full decade ago.

And, Tyson, although he occasionally seems to halfway acknowledge the criticism in this book, otherwise does nothing about it.

This is a very good book about the history of those aforementioned links in some ways.

There's little critical thinking in here about the ethics, though.

Of course, given that Tyson has trashed philosophy before, we maybe shouldn't be surprised.

That said, maybe that's WHY he trashes philosophy ... a bit of CYA on ethics.

And with that, because I know the history is good, but there wasn't much new to me, I bumped this down from 3 to 2 stars.

With a title like this one, I... expected a much more pronouncedly pacifist text than I got. Instead, while NdGT is not overtly like "whoo, wars!", he discusses the military-industrial-academic complex as if it's a fait accompli. Which I don't LIKE, but he's an astrophysicist, not an activist.

For this book, it seems he and his coauthors (all footnotes refer to "the authors" in plural) optimized for a straightforward presentation of the facts: military motivations drive this use of this technology, which was developed to answer this scientific question, or vice versa. On that level, it succeds beautifully, with cogent and accessible descriptions of higher-level concepts and technologies as well as clear summaries of... well, basically of world history since the fifteenth century, although narrowly focused on American economics and policies from 1950 onward. The second-to-last chapter in particular conveys the tangle of motivations and funding bodies in astrophysics very effectively. I just - wanted a different book. (Many exist.)

The long read time is because I grabbed snippets of this here and there between novels before finally committing a couple days ago (when I realized that 50% of the ebook is actually end matter). Tyson's style is approachable and the material is really interesting. It's a good read for gaining a better understanding of how astrophysics functions as a field, and how military organizations worldwide affect - hinder or accelerate - astrophysical research.

While exhaustively researched to the point of you definitely will learn at least something after reading this and proving that DeGrasse Tyson knows his stuff (and keep in mind I started reading this before his apparent sex scandal), this book suffers the fatal flaw of: just being boring. I've read a number of amazing nonfiction books about such heady subjects: Walter Isaacson's excellent The Innovators; Kevin Bergsen's What The F; even Ray Kurtzweil's 1,000+ page epic The Singularity is Near. But Accessory to War feels less like what it apparently is trying to be, a moral warning about using science in the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and more just an endless cramming of facts one after another. I've also read DeGrasse Tyson's excellent book on Pluto so I know he can do better.

This book is difficult to review. I gave it three stars because while the content was good, it had very little to do about the title and supposed premise of the book.

The first third is mainly the authors opinions on American at war in recent decades.

The middle portion goes into extreme detail about the use of the telescope in exploration and reconnaissance which dribbles into satellites.

The last third was mostly about the modern day space race and how the world spends too much on defense.

Periodically we get a glimpse of astrophysics and the occasional fun fact however there is very little about the science of astrophysics in the military and alot about general astronomical history and a few political diatribes.

Not Tyson's strongest showing but not an unreadable book.

This book was hard to finish... couple issues with it:

1. The book got political at times and really detracted from it.
2. The book lacked the charm and charisma that NDT brought to his StarTalk and Cosmos shows. It reads extremely dry.
3. The book doesn't really know the story it wants to tell. At times it was like a history lesson, at times it was about certain programs. As a result, the flow was very uneven and made for a hard read.

If you're looking to know more about the subject, I recommend going elsewhere. This book is only for the most diehard of NDT fans.