This was required reading in my WWS 562 class, and told a very interesting story about how economists played a role in planning the U.S. industrial production that generated the material necessary to fight World War II. The subtitle is an exaggeration because while they played an important role in getting across to policymakers – primarily the U.S. joint chiefs – that the military's equipment orders needed to be adjusted, the economists didn't exactly win the war, or even make a decisive contribution. Arguably they played a role in seeing that the war in Europe ended in 1945 rather than 1946, but that's about it.
The role the book explains is the creation of national income statistics, which were still in their infancy in the years before the war, and more importantly GDP (gross domestic product) statistics, which allowed a more precise measurement of what war production the economy could sustain.
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