1st Edition

Technological Change Methods and Themes in the History of Technology

By Robert Fox Copyright 1996
    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this volume, scholars from these two very different traditions are brought together. Never before has a single volume contained such a distinguished and diverse group of historians of technology.

    Preface; Introduction; Methods and themes in the history of technology, Robert Fox; Models; 1. The social construction of technology: a review, Trevor Pinch; 2. Towards a history of technological thought, Antoine Picon; 3. Bodies, fields, and factories: technologies and understandings in the age of revolutions, John V. Pickstone; 4. Evolution and technological change: a new metaphor for economic history?, Joel Mokyr; Medieval Technology and Social Change; 5. Lynn White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change after thirty years, Bert Hall; 6. Medieval technology and the historians: the evidence for the mill, Richard Holt; Rethinking the Industrial Revolution; 7. Law, espionage, and the transfer of technology from eighteenth century Britain, John Harris; 8. Concepts of invention and the patent controversy in Victorian Britain, Christine MacLeod; 9. Technological change during the first industrial revolution: the paradigm case of textiles, 1688–1851, Patrick O ’ Brien, Trevor Griffiths, and Philip Hunt; Technology, Politics, and National Cultures; 10. Technology transfer and industrial transformation: an interpretation of the pattern of economic development circa 1870–1914, Ian Inkster; 11. The Japan that can say No: the rise of techno-nationalism and its impact on technological change, Morris F. Low; 12. Politics and the passion for production: France and the USSR in the 1930s, Yves Cohen; 13. Managing complexity: interdisciplinary advisory committees, Thomas P. Hughes; 14. How do we know the properties of artefacts? Applying the sociology of knowledge to technology, Donald MacKenzie; Index;

    Biography

    Robert Fox