A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium (The MIT Press) - Softcover

Friedel, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 026251401X ISBN 13: 9780262514019

Verlag: The MIT Press, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Friedel Robert

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

By virtue of its range, quality, length (nearly 600 pages) and comprehensiveness, Robert Friedel's book will go to the top of the list as the standard text for an introductory Charlemagne-to-George-Bush course on the history of technology. -Times Higher Education Supplement A rare, detailed, nontheoretical survey that exposes the veins of invention that run through Western culture, creating an astonishing picture of achievement through its careful accumulation of small details. Under Mr. Friedel's firm touch it begins to be possible to feel something like the primal pulse of this culture. -Edward Rothstein, The New York Times Friedel's dazzling tour de force describes almost every aspect of technology. -Joel Mokyr, Journal of Interdisciplinary History Robert Friedel...can not only impart the lesser-known details of a familiar story but masterfully show how strange and wonderful it is that things happened the way they did. -Adam Keiper, The Wall Street Journal ...[T]his book is also a rare, detailed, nontheoretical survey that exposes the veins of invention that run through Western culture, creating an astonishing picture of achievement through its careful accumulation of small details. Mr. Friedel surveys the kinds of inventions and technologies that developed in the West over centuries, compiling a roster of innovation that encompasses everything from textiles to time telling. Under his firm touch it begins to be possible to feel something like the primal pulse of this culture. -Edward Rothstein, The New York Times

Reseña del editor:

How technological change in the West has been driven by the pursuit of improvement: a history of technology, from plows and printing presses to penicillin, the atomic bomb, and the computer. Why does technology change over time, how does it change, and what difference does it make? In this sweeping, ambitious look at a thousand years of Western experience, Robert Friedel argues that technological change comes largely through the pursuit of improvement-the deep-rooted belief that things could be done in a better way. What Friedel calls the "culture of improvement" is manifested every day in the ways people carry out their tasks in life-from tilling fields and raising children to waging war. Improvements can be ephemeral or lasting, and one person's improvement may not always be viewed as such by others. Friedel stresses the social processes by which we define what improvements are and decide which improvements will last and which will not. These processes, he emphasizes, have created both winners and losers in history. Friedel presents a series of narratives of Western technology that begin in the eleventh century and stretch into the twenty-first. Familiar figures from the history of invention are joined by others-the Italian preacher who described the first eyeglasses, the dairywomen displaced from their control over cheesemaking, and the little-known engineer who first suggested a grand tower to Gustav Eiffel. Friedel traces technology from the plow and the printing press to the internal combustion engine, the transistor, and the space shuttle. Friedel also reminds us that faith in improvement can sometimes have horrific consequences, as improved weaponry makes warfare ever more deadly and the drive for improving human beings can lead to eugenics and even genocide. The most comprehensive attempt to tell the story of Western technology in many years, engagingly written and lavishly illustrated, A Culture of Improvement documents the ways in which the drive for improvement has shaped our modern world.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: The MIT Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• ISBN 10: 026251401X
• ISBN 13: 9780262514019
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 600