Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Innovation - the imaginative attempt to introduce something new or to solve some problem - smashes routine and demands choice, even if only the choice to retain the status quo. This collection of fourteen essays provides a spectrum of historical perspectives on how, when, or why, individuals, societies, governments, and industries have made choices regarding the use of technologies.

Through historical accounts that span centuries and national boundaries, exploring the complexity of a nuclear power plant and the apparent simplicity of an electrical plug, the contributors to this volume dramatically illustrate the push and pull between technology and society. General topics addressed include: Regulation of private industry Social acceptance of commercial innovation Negative perceptions of the "Technological Age" Cultural and artistic features of technology Provocative and accessible, this collection will serve both students and faculty in history, sociology, and public policy, as well as in history and philosophy of science and technology.

These essays were originally published in the journal Technology and Culture

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

This collection of essays, culled from issues of Technology and Culture since 1966, offers academic interpretations of key developments in industrial history, mostly in the U.S. The late John G. Burke explores the movement toward regulation of an industry (in this case the manufacture of steamboat boilers) after explosions killed 2563 people between 1816 and 1848. Also noteworthy is Claude S. Fischer's analysis of telephone use from the late 1880s to 1980, showing how customers adapted what was intended to be a tool for business and functional information into a means of socialization, against the will of the industry. In a pointed article, Christine E. Bose, Philip L. Bereano and Mary Malloy argue that household technology has not reduced the time women spend on housework nor made it more pleasant. Other essays discuss the U.S. government's ambivalence toward technology during the Depression, and unsuccessful attempts at curbing air-pollution in 19th-century Britain. LaFollette is the author of Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 ; Stine is curator of engineering at the National Museum of American History. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved