Predicting how the business world might evolve is itself a multi-million-dollar business. Plenty of gurus, academics and snake-oil salesmen will tell you all about the future for a price. What the experts overlook is that the future is already here.

Chances are the products and services of tomorrow are available now to a very limited clientele at a top-secret research institute near you. Throughout history, war and its threat have driven innovation and the uptake of new technology from the ancient swordsmiths who pioneered the use of iron to the Pentagon bureaucrats who funded the early internet. And since 1945 the relationship between military needs and modern business has grown ever closer.

As well as telling the story of technology transfer in the past, Hambling explores the cutting edge of modern military research. Throughout he seeks to identify the technologies that will transform business and society in the decades to come. If history does repeat itself, Weapons Grade will be a book about the future of business with a difference: rather than learning more about the shape of current preoccupations, Hambling's readers will discover something about the future of business.