| From the medieval
farm implements brought by the first colonists to the invisible links on the Internet,
the history of technology in America is a history of our society as well. Arguing
that "the tools and processes we use are a part of our lives, not simply
instruments of our purpose," historian Carroll Pursell analyzes technology's
impact upon the lives of women and men, their work, politics, and social relationships
-- and in turn, their influence upon technological development. Pursell
shows how both the idea of progress and the mechanical means to harness the forces
of nature developed and changed as they were brought from the Old World to the
New. He describes the ways in which American industrial and agricultural technology
began to take on a distinctive shape as it adapted and extended the technical
base of the industrial revolution. He discusses the innovation of an American
system of manufactures and the mechanization of agriculture; new systems of mining,
lumbering, and farming, which helped conquer and define the West; and the technologies
that shaped the rise of cities. And he shows how the export of technology helped
to foster American hegemony both in the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere in the
world. Pursell also argues that American technology
has created a social hegemony, not only over the way we live but also over how
we evaluate that life. He shows that such developments as scientific management
techniques and industrial research changed Americans' lives as much as the mass
production of such durable consumer goods as radios and automobiles. In many ways,
he concludes, today's military-industrial complex is the legacy of the intense
cooperation between science and technology during World War II.
Carroll
Pursell is Adeline Barry Davee Professor and Director of the Program in the History
of Technology and Science at Case Western Reserve University. |
