The Invention of Technology

Nathan Schlanger is Professor of Archaeology at the École Nationale des chartes, Paris. He has published on a range of topics in prehistory, technology and material culture studies, the history of the humanities and social sciences, and international heritage management.

'There can be no more enigmatic figure in the annals of French ethnology and prehistory than André Leroi-Gourhan. In turns obsessive, capricious, prophetic and brilliant, Leroi-Gourhan was an erratic comet in a star-studded galaxy. Rarely however did he acknowledge the influence of the stars on his own orbit. But Nathan Schlanger, after years on the trail, has finally tracked him down with this scintillating intellectual biography, a must-read for every student of human technicity.' Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen

• Contents: 1. In(ter)disciplinary preliminaries. Around and about Leroi-Gourhan; 2. Technology in the making 1. Tendencies and traditions with Mauss and Rivet (1936–1946); 3. Technology in the making 2. Documentary imperatives and Bergsonian intuitions (1940–1949); 4. (Mis)adventures with Homo faber (1941–1950); 5. Prehistory regained: continuities, accumulations, recapitulations (1944–1962); 6. Psychological connections and biological foundations. From technical behaviour to the evolution of technicity (1950–1965); 7. Technological redemptions: machines, artisans and the re-humanization of Homo faber; Bibliography; List of figures; Indices.