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official pamphlet for the World’s Fair read, promising that the best preparation for tomorrow is “familiarity with today.” And it was true: If one looked closely, the next five years were already implicit. The Second World War, less than a year
     away for most of the countries participating in the Fair, would soon prove the importance of technology and communication in an increasingly interconnected world. The United Nations would be created. International borders would be redrawn. Great amounts of moneyand research would be placed into weaponry and transportation. Mass production would arrive on a scale as yet unseen. Ballistics and code breaking would jump-start the development of electronic computer
     technology. And most unforgettable of all, endeavors like the Manhattan Project would put the peril of nuclear weapons into worldwide collective consciousness, contributing to the iron curtain that was soon to fall. By the close of the 1940s, technological innovation would be associated with a new urgency, one that demanded a new kind of clarity and care.
    In 1933, in London’s
Daily Mail,
the 3rd Viscount Rothermere of Britain had written thatit was “Germany’s great good fortune to have found a leader who can combine for the public good all the most vigorous elements in the country,” 4 and by “vigorous elements,” he’d meant German spirit, ingenuity, and a
     reverence for authority and work. There had been words of praise for Adolf Hitler from many other countries as well. But by 1939, all were trying to take those words back. The same people who had earlier sung the praises of the German chancellor and the remarkable growth he was bringing to his country were now walking along the Futurama’s moving sidewalks wondering how much longer it would be before their countries were at war. And, as evidenced by Albert Einstein’s
     presence in America (he had fled Germany earlier that year) and his speech on the Fair’s opening day, a new kind of refugee was becoming part of America’s cultural and intellectual elite, men and women coming over in an attempt to escape Hitler and his racism and vitriol. The World’s Fair and its emphasis on an international future was a harbinger of the mixed social and economic world that would soon emerge. And so was Germany’s conspicuous absence from
     the party. Hitler had refused to allow Germans to attend.

After that tense episode of Anton Porsche finding out about his son’s secret lab in 1889, Ferdinand had not abandoned his electrical experiments. But something had shifted between them: Both father and son seemed to have realized that the situation was not going to change; they had to accept it, like it or not. Another son had been born to the Porsches, and was coming of age by then, and the younger boy was
     more excited about following his father’s path than was the teenage Ferdinand, so his father began looking toward him to take up the family trade. Ferdinand’s mother, Anna, continued to speak to Anton in quiet moments, wondering if perhaps Ferdinand really did have some kind of gift, wondering if perhaps they needed to allow him to explore it. Eventually Anton stopped bothering his son so much about what he did in his free time, just as long as he kept up with his
     work.
    One night, walking back from a political meeting in town that had followed a long day in the shop, Anton received an enormous shock. Perhaps he even stopped and shook his head, wondering if he’d already walked home, if he’d fallen asleep and was stumbling through a dream. The trees and grass stretched out in front of him along the path to the house had a strange glow, a reflected brightness that grew stronger with each step. The house itself seemed to have
     been filled with some kind of luminous liquid that was now dripping out of the windows and doors. Anton could see the profiles of his wife and children, shadows on the wall. His son had succeeded in his experiments: Anton was now