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A Social History of American Technology |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Greenland History > Item 94
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A Social History of American Technology
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by Ruth Schwartz Cowan
Sales Rank: 71099
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Discount: 10 %
$9.88
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 352 pages
Published by: Oxford University Press, USA January 30, 1997
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0195046056
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0195046052
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 15.8 ounces
Product Review
"A careful, effective overview of American technology. The narrative is fluent and certainly appropriate for upper-division undergraduates."--Dan O'Bryan, Sierra Nevada College
"A much-needed survey of industry and technology and their impact on American history."--Barbara M. Kelly, Hofstra University
"A very accessible, interesting, and informative survey that again and again provokes new ways of thinking about the American experience. I use this in a course on industrialization, but would also use it as a companion text in any American History survey. Engaging."--Dale H. Porter, Western Michigan University
"By far the best book of its kind in the field."--John S. Nader, State University of New York at Delhi
Product Description
For over 250 years American technology has been regarded as a unique hallmark of American culture and an important factor in American prosperity. Despite this American history has rarely been told from the perspective of the history of technology. A Social History of American Technology fills
this gap by surveying the history of American technology from the tools used by the earliest native inhabitants to the technological systems -- cars and computers, aircraft and antibiotics -- we are familiar with today. Cowan makes use of the most recent scholarship to explain how the unique
characteristics of American cultures and American geography have affected the technologies that have been invented, manufactured, and used throughout the years. She also focuses on the key individuals and ideas that have shaped important technological developments. The text explains how various
technologies have affected the ways in which Americans work, govern, cook, transport, communicate, maintain their health, and reproduce. Cowan demonstrates that technological change has always been closely related to social development, and explores the multiple, complex relationships that have
existed between such diverse social agents as households and businesses, the scientific community and the defense establishment, artists and inventors. Divided into three sections -- colonial America, industrialization, the 20th century -- A Social History of American Technology is ideal for courses
in American social and economic history, as a correlated text for the American history survey, as well as for courses that focus on the history of American technology. It offers students the unique opportunity to learn not only how profoundly technological change has affected the American way of
life, but how profoundly the American way of life has affected technology.
Reader Reviews
Ruth Cowan attempts to show how technology has developed since the colonial days through the present trends of biotechnology. This is a daunting task and it is pulled off as well as can be expected. There is a lot of information to be found here but a great deal more is missing. This book is still the best general overview on the history of technology and while more can be done this is a good start. If you want to understand how technology shaped our society you can't go wrong with this book. The early chapters on the colonial economy are very well done and tightly analyzed. After that it starts to spread apart a little and the technology jumps around. The transportation revolution chapter is one of the more disappointing for me. While she does a decent job on the railroads she completely misses the significance of the canals on the early development in America. Her chapters on innovation and technological systems provide nice summaries of the relevant literature. Most of the chapters leading up to the twentieth century are filler that really don't address too many technological issues. The automobile chapter tries to do an amazingly quick history of cars and a lot gets left out in the process with even more wrong. The communications chapter does a better job of showing the evolution while looking at the technologies. The history of the military-academic-industrial complex provides an interesting look at how the Manhattan Project and NASA changed the way technology was developed. Cowan does a very good job on this particular topic and it is probably her best chapter in the later part of the book. The final chapter is on biotechnology and covers genetic corn, birth control and penicillin. These advancements while important are not really given justice.
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A Social History of American Technology
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