In this volume, scholars from these two very different traditions are brought together. Never before has a single volume contained such a distinguished and diverse group of historians of technology.
Preface; Introduction; Methods and themes in the history of technology, Robert Fox; Models; 1. The social construction of technology: a review, Trevor Pinch; 2. Towards a history of technological thought, Antoine Picon; 3. Bodies, fields, and factories: technologies and understandings in the age of revolutions, John V. Pickstone; 4. Evolution and technological change: a new metaphor for economic history?, Joel Mokyr; Medieval Technology and Social Change; 5. Lynn White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change after thirty years, Bert Hall; 6. Medieval technology and the historians: the evidence for the mill, Richard Holt; Rethinking the Industrial Revolution; 7. Law, espionage, and the transfer of technology from eighteenth century Britain, John Harris; 8. Concepts of invention and the patent controversy in Victorian Britain, Christine MacLeod; 9. Technological change during the first industrial revolution: the paradigm case of textiles, 1688–1851, Patrick O ’ Brien, Trevor Griffiths, and Philip Hunt; Technology, Politics, and National Cultures; 10. Technology transfer and industrial transformation: an interpretation of the pattern of economic development circa 1870–1914, Ian Inkster; 11. The Japan that can say No: the rise of techno-nationalism and its impact on technological change, Morris F. Low; 12. Politics and the passion for production: France and the USSR in the 1930s, Yves Cohen; 13. Managing complexity: interdisciplinary advisory committees, Thomas P. Hughes; 14. How do we know the properties of artefacts? Applying the sociology of knowledge to technology, Donald MacKenzie; Index;
