Technology as Human Social Tradition

Technology as Human Social Tradition

Author: Peter Jordan

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-11-06

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0520276922

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"This book examines three interlocking topics that are central to all archaeological and anthropological inquiry: the role of technology in human existence; the reproduction of social traditions; the factors that generate cultural diversity and change. The overall aim is to outline a new kind of approach for researching variability and transformation in human material culture, and the main argument is that these technological traditions exhibit heritable continuity: they consist of information stored in human brains and then passed onto others through social learning. Technological traditions can therefore be understood as manifestations of a complex transmission system, and applying this new perspective to human material culture builds on, but also largely transcends, much of the earlier work conducted by archaeologists and anthropologists into the significance, function and social meanings associated with tools, objects and vernacular architecture"--


Book Synopsis Technology as Human Social Tradition by : Peter Jordan

Download or read book Technology as Human Social Tradition written by Peter Jordan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book examines three interlocking topics that are central to all archaeological and anthropological inquiry: the role of technology in human existence; the reproduction of social traditions; the factors that generate cultural diversity and change. The overall aim is to outline a new kind of approach for researching variability and transformation in human material culture, and the main argument is that these technological traditions exhibit heritable continuity: they consist of information stored in human brains and then passed onto others through social learning. Technological traditions can therefore be understood as manifestations of a complex transmission system, and applying this new perspective to human material culture builds on, but also largely transcends, much of the earlier work conducted by archaeologists and anthropologists into the significance, function and social meanings associated with tools, objects and vernacular architecture"--

Technology in the Western Political Tradition

Technology in the Western Political Tradition

Author: Arthur M. Melzer

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780801480065

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This well-integrated group of thirteen papers addresses the intriguing and perplexing issue of whether modern government can handle the problem of technology.


Book Synopsis Technology in the Western Political Tradition by : Arthur M. Melzer

Download or read book Technology in the Western Political Tradition written by Arthur M. Melzer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This well-integrated group of thirteen papers addresses the intriguing and perplexing issue of whether modern government can handle the problem of technology.

The Evolution of Technology

The Evolution of Technology

Author: George Basalla

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1989-02-24

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1316101584

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This book presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based upon recent scholarship in the history of technology and upon relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. It challenges the popular notion that technology advances by the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions owing little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies taken selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, and reappear with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that have long been available to humanity; the second is necessity: the belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological requirements such as food, shelter, and defense; and the third is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological progress. Although the book is not intended to provide a strict chronological account of the development of technology, historical examples - including many of the major achievements of Western technology: the waterwheel, the printing press, the steam engine, automobiles and trucks, and the transistor - are used extensively to support its theoretical framework. The Evolution of Techology will be of interest to all readers seeking to learn how and why technology changes, including both students and specialists in the history of technology and science.


Book Synopsis The Evolution of Technology by : George Basalla

Download or read book The Evolution of Technology written by George Basalla and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-02-24 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based upon recent scholarship in the history of technology and upon relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. It challenges the popular notion that technology advances by the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions owing little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies taken selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, and reappear with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that have long been available to humanity; the second is necessity: the belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological requirements such as food, shelter, and defense; and the third is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological progress. Although the book is not intended to provide a strict chronological account of the development of technology, historical examples - including many of the major achievements of Western technology: the waterwheel, the printing press, the steam engine, automobiles and trucks, and the transistor - are used extensively to support its theoretical framework. The Evolution of Techology will be of interest to all readers seeking to learn how and why technology changes, including both students and specialists in the history of technology and science.

Technological Change

Technological Change

Author: Robert Fox

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 3718657929

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Technological Change gathers together examples of the best current thinking on methodology and the theoretical perspectives that are increasingly of concern to historians of technology, whilst at the same time presenting other papers which reflect the 'state of the art' in key areas of historical debate. The volume emphasises the need both to establish a common forum for theoretical and empirical research and also to delineate the shared concerns of these two treatments, which are too often reflected as conflicting rather than mutually supportive approaches to the writing of the history of technology.


Book Synopsis Technological Change by : Robert Fox

Download or read book Technological Change written by Robert Fox and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technological Change gathers together examples of the best current thinking on methodology and the theoretical perspectives that are increasingly of concern to historians of technology, whilst at the same time presenting other papers which reflect the 'state of the art' in key areas of historical debate. The volume emphasises the need both to establish a common forum for theoretical and empirical research and also to delineate the shared concerns of these two treatments, which are too often reflected as conflicting rather than mutually supportive approaches to the writing of the history of technology.

Technology

Technology

Author: Eric Schatzberg

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-11-12

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 022658397X

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In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everything from steelmaking to singing. In Technology: Critical History of a Concept, Eric Schatzberg explains why technology is so difficult to define by examining its three thousand year history, one shaped by persistent tensions between scholars and technical practitioners. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to hold technicians in low esteem, defining technical practices as mere means toward ends defined by others. Technicians, in contrast, have repeatedly pushed back against this characterization, insisting on the dignity, creativity, and cultural worth of their work. ​The tension between scholars and technicians continued from Aristotle through Francis Bacon and into the nineteenth century. It was only in the twentieth century that modern meanings of technology arose: technology as the industrial arts, technology as applied science, and technology as technique. Schatzberg traces these three meanings to the present day, when discourse about technology has become pervasive, but confusion among the three principal meanings of technology remains common. He shows that only through a humanistic concept of technology can we understand the complex human choices embedded in our modern world.


Book Synopsis Technology by : Eric Schatzberg

Download or read book Technology written by Eric Schatzberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-11-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everything from steelmaking to singing. In Technology: Critical History of a Concept, Eric Schatzberg explains why technology is so difficult to define by examining its three thousand year history, one shaped by persistent tensions between scholars and technical practitioners. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to hold technicians in low esteem, defining technical practices as mere means toward ends defined by others. Technicians, in contrast, have repeatedly pushed back against this characterization, insisting on the dignity, creativity, and cultural worth of their work. ​The tension between scholars and technicians continued from Aristotle through Francis Bacon and into the nineteenth century. It was only in the twentieth century that modern meanings of technology arose: technology as the industrial arts, technology as applied science, and technology as technique. Schatzberg traces these three meanings to the present day, when discourse about technology has become pervasive, but confusion among the three principal meanings of technology remains common. He shows that only through a humanistic concept of technology can we understand the complex human choices embedded in our modern world.

Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica After the Spanish Invasion

Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica After the Spanish Invasion

Author: Rani T. Alexander

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0826360157

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This impressive collection features the work of archaeologists who systematically explore the material and social consequences of new technological systems introduced after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion in Mesoamerica. It is the first collection to present case studies that show how both commonplace and capital-intensive technologies were intertwined with indigenous knowledge systems to reshape local, regional, and transoceanic ecologies, commodity chains, and political, social, and religious institutions across Mexico and Central America.


Book Synopsis Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica After the Spanish Invasion by : Rani T. Alexander

Download or read book Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica After the Spanish Invasion written by Rani T. Alexander and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This impressive collection features the work of archaeologists who systematically explore the material and social consequences of new technological systems introduced after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion in Mesoamerica. It is the first collection to present case studies that show how both commonplace and capital-intensive technologies were intertwined with indigenous knowledge systems to reshape local, regional, and transoceanic ecologies, commodity chains, and political, social, and religious institutions across Mexico and Central America.

Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain

Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain

Author: Jon Agar

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2018-04-09

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1911576585

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Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain brings together historians with a wide range of interests to take a uniquely wide-lens view of how technology and the environment have been intimately and irreversibly entangled in Britain over the last 300 years. It combines, for the first time, two perspectives with much to say about Britain since the industrial revolution: the history of technology and environmental history. Technologies are modified environments, just as nature is to varying extents engineered. Furthermore, technologies and our living and non-living environment are both predominant material forms of organisation – and self-organisation – that surround and make us. Both have changed over time, in intersecting ways. Technologies discussed in the collection include bulldozers, submarine cables, automobiles, flood barriers, medical devices, museum displays and biotechnologies. Environments investigated include bogs, cities, farms, places of natural beauty and pollution, land and sea. The book explores this diversity but also offers an integrated framework for understanding these intersections.


Book Synopsis Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain by : Jon Agar

Download or read book Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain written by Jon Agar and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain brings together historians with a wide range of interests to take a uniquely wide-lens view of how technology and the environment have been intimately and irreversibly entangled in Britain over the last 300 years. It combines, for the first time, two perspectives with much to say about Britain since the industrial revolution: the history of technology and environmental history. Technologies are modified environments, just as nature is to varying extents engineered. Furthermore, technologies and our living and non-living environment are both predominant material forms of organisation – and self-organisation – that surround and make us. Both have changed over time, in intersecting ways. Technologies discussed in the collection include bulldozers, submarine cables, automobiles, flood barriers, medical devices, museum displays and biotechnologies. Environments investigated include bogs, cities, farms, places of natural beauty and pollution, land and sea. The book explores this diversity but also offers an integrated framework for understanding these intersections.

The Social Construction of Technological Systems, anniversary edition

The Social Construction of Technological Systems, anniversary edition

Author: Wiebe E. Bijker

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2012-05-18

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 0262517604

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An anniversary edition of an influential book that introduced a groundbreaking approach to the study of science, technology, and society. This pioneering book, first published in 1987, launched the new field of social studies of technology. It introduced a method of inquiry—social construction of technology, or SCOT—that became a key part of the wider discipline of science and technology studies. The book helped the MIT Press shape its STS list and inspired the Inside Technology series. The thirteen essays in the book tell stories about such varied technologies as thirteenth-century galleys, eighteenth-century cooking stoves, and twentieth-century missile systems. Taken together, they affirm the fruitfulness of an approach to the study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions, and they demonstrate the illuminating effects of the integration of empirics and theory. The approaches in this volume—collectively called SCOT (after the volume's title) have since broadened their scope, and twenty-five years after the publication of this book, it is difficult to think of a technology that has not been studied from a SCOT perspective and impossible to think of a technology that cannot be studied that way.


Book Synopsis The Social Construction of Technological Systems, anniversary edition by : Wiebe E. Bijker

Download or read book The Social Construction of Technological Systems, anniversary edition written by Wiebe E. Bijker and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-05-18 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anniversary edition of an influential book that introduced a groundbreaking approach to the study of science, technology, and society. This pioneering book, first published in 1987, launched the new field of social studies of technology. It introduced a method of inquiry—social construction of technology, or SCOT—that became a key part of the wider discipline of science and technology studies. The book helped the MIT Press shape its STS list and inspired the Inside Technology series. The thirteen essays in the book tell stories about such varied technologies as thirteenth-century galleys, eighteenth-century cooking stoves, and twentieth-century missile systems. Taken together, they affirm the fruitfulness of an approach to the study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions, and they demonstrate the illuminating effects of the integration of empirics and theory. The approaches in this volume—collectively called SCOT (after the volume's title) have since broadened their scope, and twenty-five years after the publication of this book, it is difficult to think of a technology that has not been studied from a SCOT perspective and impossible to think of a technology that cannot be studied that way.

A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900

A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900

Author: Thomas Kingston Derry

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 1960-01-01

Total Pages: 817

ISBN-13: 0486274721

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Highly readable, profusely illustrated survey relates technology to history of every age: food production, metalworking, mining, steam power, transportation, electricity, and much more. 354 black-and-white illustrations. 1961 edition.


Book Synopsis A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900 by : Thomas Kingston Derry

Download or read book A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900 written by Thomas Kingston Derry and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1960-01-01 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highly readable, profusely illustrated survey relates technology to history of every age: food production, metalworking, mining, steam power, transportation, electricity, and much more. 354 black-and-white illustrations. 1961 edition.

Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology

Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology

Author: William Cumpiano

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 1994-02

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780811806404

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A complete reference for the design and construction of the steel-string folk guitar and the classical guitar.


Book Synopsis Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology by : William Cumpiano

Download or read book Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology written by William Cumpiano and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 1994-02 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete reference for the design and construction of the steel-string folk guitar and the classical guitar.