Book Details
Over eight thematic chapters, Misa provides detailed portraits of the inventors and users of technologies. Beginning his narrative at the dawn of the "modern" era, Misa surveys the intersections of technology, politics, and culture in the Renaissance court system of Western Europe; the role of technology in Holland's commercial expansion; the diverse "paths" to and through Britain's industrial revolution; the links among technology, imperialism, and trade in the nineteenth century; and the application of scientific discoveries in chemistry and physics to industry in Germany and the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Misa then examines the introduction of mass-produced consumer goods and their impact on daily life and modernist sensibilities; the rise of the military-industrial complex during World War II and the technological innovations generated by the command-and-control economies of the Cold War; and the emergence of a technology-oriented global culture since the 1970s. The work concludes with a provocative essay laying out the technological choices we face today and considering their impact on the type of society we wish for the future.
A masterful analysis of the ways in which technology and culture have influenced each other over five centuries, Leonardo to the Internet encourages students and general readers alike to think both more widely and more deeply about the invention, development, transfer, and adaptation of technologies within Western civilization.
About the Author: Thomas J. Misa is an associate professor of history at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. His books include Managing Technology in Society, Modernity and Technology, and A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925, the last of which, also available from Johns Hopkins, was awarded the Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology.
- Binding Paperback
- Author/s Misa, Thomas J.
- ISBN13 9780801878091
- ISBN10 0801878098
- Pages 324
- Published 2004
- Language English
Leonardo to the Internet
- Author Thomas J. Misa
- Publisher JOHNS HOPKINS U.P.
- ISBN 9780801878091
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