Content area
Full Text
Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea. By Kathleen Broome Williams. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2004. ISBN 1-55750-952-2. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 240. $32.95.
It has been said that biography is one of the toughest writing genres. Analyzing someone's life requires maintaining a careful balance between interpreting the subject's significant milestones and providing an historical context for them without losing the reader. Williams does this and more as she brilliantly blends her account of Hopper's life with its long careers in the Navy and in corporations and the development and commercialization of the computer.
As readers learn how Hopper simultaneously succeeded in three male dominated worlds-the U.S. Navy, computer programming, and corporate America-Williams reveals an energetic, diligent, disciplined, humble, and inspiring person; a conscientious, caring, and committed leader; and an effective negotiator between the Navy and corporations. We also learn that Hopper was a pack rat, a...