Operation Valhalla

<i>Operation Valhalla</i> collects eighteen texts by German media theorist Friedrich Kittler on the close connections between war and media technology. In these essays public lectures interviews literary analyses and autobiographical musings Kittler outlines how war has been a central driver of media's evolution from Prussia's wars against Napoleon to the so-called War on Terror. Covering an eclectic array of topics he charts the intertwined military and theatrical histories of the searchlight and the stage lamp traces the microprocessor's genealogy back to the tank shows how rapid-fire guns brought about new standards for optics and acoustics and reads Thomas Pynchon's <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i> to upset established claims about the relationship between war technology and history in the twentieth century. Throughout <i>Operation Valhalla</i> foregrounds the outsize role of war in media history as well as Kittler's importance as a daring and original thinker.