What Hath Kranzberg wrought? Or, does the history of technology matter?

Technology and Culture

Volumn 38, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 697-712

  Roland, Alex ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0031316098     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3106860     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Melvin Kranzberg (1917-95) was cofounder of the Society for the History of Technology and editor of Technology and Culture through its first twenty-three volumes. Apparently he missed most of the 1980 meeting, because he was giving the presidential address at the meeting of Sigma Xi, which was being held simultaneously. Nevertheless, Mel managed to complete his responsibilities there and make it to the end of the SHOT meeting.
2. Pamela Long suggests that the growth of SHOT in recent years threatens this tradition. Meetings are larger now and newcomers may well find it more difficult to break the ice than my generation did twenty years ago. E-mail, Pamela Long to Alex Roland, August 23, 1996.
3. Walter McDougall will not mind if I illustrate this point with a story about him. He once had an article rejected by Technology and Culture that was subsequently accepted and published by the American Historical Review . The book from which the article was drawn went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. SHOT made it up to Professor McDougall by awarding him the Dexter Prize for the same book, . . . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York, 1985).
4. Walter McDougall will not mind if I illustrate this point with a story about him. He once had an article rejected by Technology and Culture that was subsequently accepted and published by the American Historical Review . The book from which the article was drawn went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. SHOT made it up to Professor McDougall by awarding him the Dexter Prize for the same book, . . . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York, 1985).
5. A Roper poll conducted for the History Channel and published in April 1995, titled Americans' Attitudes toward History (typescript, in author's possession), found that "the item of greatest interest to the public is the history of science and technology" (p. 2). I am grateful to Paul Israel for bringing this poll to my attention.
6. This, of course, is the title of John Staudenmaier's study of the first twenty-three years of our journal, Technology and Culture. John Staudenmaier, Technology's Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).
7. This, of course, is the title of John Staudenmaier's study of the first twenty-three years of our journal, Technology and Culture. John Staudenmaier, Technology's Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).
8. In response to the version of this address delivered in London, Noble said that "a focus on the history of technology per se ran the risk of being counterproductive in the long run in that it tended to reify and isolate technology and thereby render more difficult a fuller social understanding of technological endeavor." David Noble to Alex Roland, August 3, 1996.
9. Fernand Braudel has made a similar argument, one that is in some ways even more severe. He says that specialized historians of technology seldom grasp the full breadth of the history of technology, which is "that of human history in all its diversity." In other words, specialists in the field are parochial. Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life, quoted in Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine (New York, 1988), p. 3.
10. Fernand Braudel has made a similar argument, one that is in some ways even more severe. He says that specialized historians of technology seldom grasp the full breadth of the history of technology, which is "that of human history in all its diversity." In other words, specialists in the field are parochial. Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life, quoted in Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine (New York, 1988), p. 3.
11. Fernand Braudel has made a similar argument, one that is in some ways even more severe. He says that specialized historians of technology seldom grasp the full breadth of the history of technology, which is "that of human history in all its diversity." In other words, specialists in the field are parochial. Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life, quoted in Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine (New York, 1988), p. 3.
12. Stephen H. Cutcliffe and Robert C. Post, eds., In Context: History and the History of Technology (Bethlehem, Pa., 1989)
13. Leo Marx, review of Cutcliffe and Post, In Context, Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 394-96.
14. Melvin Kranzberg, "One Last Word-Technology and History: 'Kranzberg's Laws,'" in Cutcliffe and Post, In Context.
15. "Communications," Technology and Culture 33 (1992): 406-7.
16. This was an allusion to Professor Marx's classic study The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York, 1964).
17. Compare Langdon Winner's critique of social constructivism, "Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology," Science, Technology and Human Values 18 (summer 1993): 362-78.
18. Alex Roland, Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail (Bloomington, 1978).
19. Alex Roland, Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915-1958, 2 vols.( Washington, D.C., 1985).
20. George W. Gray, Frontiers of Flight: The Story of NACA Research (New York, 1948).
21. Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962); Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977); Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976); Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
22. Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962); Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977); Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976); Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
23. Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962); Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977); Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976); Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
24. Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962); Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977); Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976); Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
25. David Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977); Edwin T. Layton, The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession (Cleveland, 1971); Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York, 1983); McDougall (n. 3 above).
26. David Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977); Edwin T. Layton, The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession (Cleveland, 1971); Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York, 1983); McDougall (n. 3 above).
27. David Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977); Edwin T. Layton, The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession (Cleveland, 1971); Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York, 1983); McDougall (n. 3 above).
28. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
29. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
30. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
31. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
32. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
33. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
34. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
35. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
36. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
37. By my reading, the following books unpack the black box: David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1985); Hugh G. J. Aitken, The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, 1985); Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making, 1801-1885 (Baltimore, 1987); Anthony F. C. Wallace, St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York, 1987); John White, The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car to the Coming of Steel (Baltimore, 1993). find that the following books do not explore the contents of the black box in a way that is peculiar to the history of technology: McDougall; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge, 1988); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989); Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992).
38. Daniel Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945 (New York, 1991).
39. Bernard Finn, review of The Invisible Weapon, by Daniel Headrick, Technology and Culture 34 (1993): 180-82; quote at p. 181.
40. Bernard Finn, review of The Invisible Weapon, by Daniel Headrick, Technology and Culture 34 (1993): 180-82; quote at p. 181.
41. Edward W. Constant II, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore, 1980); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1970).
42. Edward W. Constant II, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore, 1980); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1970).
43. The most complete single source is Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983).
44. Aitken, Syntony and Spark (n. 16 above) and The Continuous Wave (n. 18 above).
45. Aitken, Syntony and Spark (n. 16 above) and The Continuous Wave (n. 18 above).
46. Arnold Pacey, The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology (New York, 1975); George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988); Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (New York, 1990).
47. Arnold Pacey, The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology (New York, 1975); George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988); Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (New York, 1990).
48. Arnold Pacey, The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology (New York, 1975); George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988); Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (New York, 1990).
49. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "The Consumption Junction: A Proposal for Research Strategies in the Sociology of Technology," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
50. Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics (Cambridge, 1982), p. 34.
51. Alex Roland, "Theories and Models of Technological Change: Semantics and Substance," Science, Technology and Human Values 17 (winter 1992): 79-100.
52. J. David Bolter, Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), p. 17; R. A. Buchanan, The Power of the Machine: The Impact of Technology from 1700 to the Present (London, 1994), pp. 3-8.
53. J. David Bolter, Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), p. 17; R. A. Buchanan, The Power of the Machine: The Impact of Technology from 1700 to the Present (London, 1994), pp. 3-8.
54. James Given, "The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power," American Historical Review 94 (April 1989): 336-59; quotes on pp. 347, 356, 337. Compare Theodore M. Porter's assertion that "quantification is a technology of distance" in his Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, 1995), p. ix.
55. James Given, "The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power," American Historical Review 94 (April 1989): 336-59; quotes on pp. 347, 356, 337. Compare Theodore M. Porter's assertion that "quantification is a technology of distance" in his Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, 1995), p. ix.
56. Leo Marx, "The Idea of 'Technology' and Postmodern Pessimism," in Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994); quotes on pp. 248, 249.
57. John Law, "Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion," in Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch (n. 25 above), p. 115.
58. Staudenmaier (n. 5 above), chap. 1.
59. John M. Staudenmaier, "Recent Trends in the History of Technology," American Historical Review 95 (June 1990): 715-25.
60. Merritt Roe Smith, ed., Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American Experience (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pp. 2-3.
61. W. Bernard Carlson, "The History of Technology as a Marketplace of Ideas" (paper presented at "History of Technology in the Year 2000: A Special Workshop," History and Sociology of Science Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, November 1994).
62. Harold Laswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How? (Cleveland, 1965).
63. Mel Kranzberg tried with his six "laws," the most familiar of which is the first: "technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral." Kranzberg, "One Last Word" (n. 10 above), quote on p. 245.
64. Pamela McCorduck, Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence (New York, 1979).
65. Stuart Norvig and Peter Russell, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1995),p. 17; Herbert A. Simon, Models of My Life (New York, 1991), pp. 205-6.
66. Stuart Norvig and Peter Russell, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1995),p. 17; Herbert A. Simon, Models of My Life (New York, 1991), pp. 205-6.
67. This treatment of Feigenbaum is based on his own accounts in "Expert Systems," The Encyclopedia of Computer Science, 3rd. ed., ed. Anthony Ralston and Edwin D. Reilly (New York, 1992): 536-40; and "A Personal View of Expert Systems: Looking Back and Looking Ahead," Stanford University Knowledge Systems Laboratory Report NO. KSL 92-41, April 1992.
68. This treatment of Feigenbaum is based on his own accounts in "Expert Systems," The Encyclopedia of Computer Science, 3rd. ed., ed. Anthony Ralston and Edwin D. Reilly (New York, 1992): 536-40; and "A Personal View of Expert Systems: Looking Back and Looking Ahead," Stanford University Knowledge Systems Laboratory Report NO. KSL 92-41, April 1992.
69. On September 8, 1993, at the conference on "Technological Change" held at Rhodes House and Wadham College, Oxford University, Trevor Pinch challenged the assembled audience to identify a single technology that was not socially constructed. Walter Vincenti rose to suggest retractable landing gear. He reported that this device was the same on airplanes around the world, regardless of the social, political, or economic environment in which they were developed. No one present had the knowledge to argue the point with him.
70. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, in its preface to the books that have appeared in its Technology Series, says that "technology is the application of science, engineering, and industrial organization to create a human-built world."
71. David Noble, characteristically, has an original and insightful answer to this question. He believes our culture is obsessed with technology because we are obsessed with the future. People in general are not interested in the history of technology. History, says Noble, is about people. To the extent that history of technology reifies things, it misses the point. Telephone conversation with the author, September 30, 1996.