Making Europe – serie

Over the course of 150 years, Europe's protean technologies inspired and underpinned the globalizing ambitions of European nations. This book aims to show how technology mediated European influence in the rest of the world and how this mediation in turn transformed Europeans. Europeans mapped, they exploited, and they exchanged - their interactions ranged from technological and biological genocide to treaties of cooperation and the construction of elaborate colonial infrastructures. Quite aside from the enormous variety of political settings, cultures and colonial programs, interrelations created dependencies on both sides. Cultural transfers were rarely unidirectional, and often a kind of Pidgin-knowledge emerged, a hybrid fusion of European and local knowledge and skills. As observers have rightly pointed out, Europe played both the role of 'Prometheus unbound' and the 'Sorcerer's apprentice'.

Over the course of 150 years, Europe's protean technologies inspired and underpinned the globalizing ambitions of European nations. This book aims to show how technology mediated European influence in the rest of the world and how this mediation in turn transformed Europeans. Europeans mapped, they exploited, and they exchanged - their interactions ranged from technological and biological genocide to treaties of cooperation and the construction of elaborate colonial infrastructures. Quite aside from the enormous variety of political settings, cultures and colonial programs, interrelations created dependencies on both sides. Cultural transfers were rarely unidirectional, and often a kind of Pidgin-knowledge emerged, a hybrid fusion of European and local knowledge and skills. As observers have rightly pointed out, Europe played both the role of 'Prometheus unbound' and the 'Sorcerer's apprentice'.

Europe's infrastructure both united and divided peoples and places via economic systems, crises, and wars. Some used transport, communication, and energy infrastructure to supply food, power, industrial products, credit, and unprecedented wealth; others mobilized infrastructure capacities for waging war on scales hitherto unknown. Europe's natural world was fundamentally transformed; its landscapes, waterscapes, and airscapes turned into infrastructure themselves. Europe's Infrastructure Transition reframes the conflicted story of modern European history by taking material networks as its point of departure. It traces the priorities set and the choices made in constructing transnational infrastructure connections - within and beyond the continent. Moreover, this study introduces an alternative set of historically-key individuals, organizations, and companies in the making of modern Europe and analyzes roads both taken and ignored.

Europe's infrastructure both united and divided peoples and places via economic systems, crises, and wars. Some used transport, communication, and energy infrastructure to supply food, power, industrial products, credit, and unprecedented wealth; others mobilized infrastructure capacities for waging war on scales hitherto unknown. Europe's natural world was fundamentally transformed; its landscapes, waterscapes, and airscapes turned into infrastructure themselves. Europe's Infrastructure Transition reframes the conflicted story of modern European history by taking material networks as its point of departure. It traces the priorities set and the choices made in constructing transnational infrastructure connections - within and beyond the continent. Moreover, this study introduces an alternative set of historically-key individuals, organizations, and companies in the making of modern Europe and analyzes roads both taken and ignored.

Who has decided how Europeans have dressed and dwelled? Traveled and dined? Worked and played? Who, in fact, can be credited with the shaping of Europe? Certainly inventors, engineers, and politicians played their parts. But in the making of Europe, consumers, tinkerers, and rebels were an unrecognized force - until now. In this book, historians Ruth Oldenziel and Mikael Hård spotlight the people who 'made' Europe - by appropriating technology, protesting for and against it. Using examples from Britain and the Continent, the authors illustrate the conflicts that accompanied the modern technologies, from the sewing machine to the bicycle, the Barbie doll to personal computers. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of how Europeans have lived, from the 1850s to the current century.

Who has decided how Europeans have dressed and dwelled? Traveled and dined? Worked and played? Who, in fact, can be credited with the shaping of Europe? Certainly inventors, engineers, and politicians played their parts. But in the making of Europe, consumers, tinkerers, and rebels were an unrecognized force - until now. In this book, historians Ruth Oldenziel and Mikael Hård spotlight the people who 'made' Europe - by appropriating technology, protesting for and against it. Using examples from Britain and the Continent, the authors illustrate the conflicts that accompanied the modern technologies, from the sewing machine to the bicycle, the Barbie doll to personal computers. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of how Europeans have lived, from the 1850s to the current century.

Since the early years of telegraphy, modernity at large generated and has depended upon technologies of electrical/electronic communication and information circulation: from telephone, radio, and television to the internet. This volume reveals these connecting technologies’ geopolitical importance and their crucial relationships with culture, commerce, and communities. Also the authors critically examine their spatial dimensions and transnational implications – as material objects with particular qualities, as elements in institutional complexes, and as ‘vehicles’ carrying complex symbolic meanings. Through in-depth assessments of critical, as well as mundane, events in the history of communications and information, these analyses will significantly alter conventional perspectives both on communications and on modern European history.

Since the early years of telegraphy, modernity at large generated and has depended upon technologies of electrical/electronic communication and information circulation: from telephone, radio, and television to the internet. This volume reveals these connecting technologies’ geopolitical importance and their crucial relationships with culture, commerce, and communities. Also the authors critically examine their spatial dimensions and transnational implications – as material objects with particular qualities, as elements in institutional complexes, and as ‘vehicles’ carrying complex symbolic meanings. Through in-depth assessments of critical, as well as mundane, events in the history of communications and information, these analyses will significantly alter conventional perspectives both on communications and on modern European history.

Focusing on experts in technology and science, Building Europe on Expertise delivers a new reading of European history. The authors show that modern Europe was built by experts using their unique knowledge to shape societies, set political agendas, and establish collaborations which proved decisive in integrating the continent.The Making Europe series was awarded the Freeman Award by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) in 2014, in recognition of its significant contribution to the interaction of science and technology studies with the study of innovation.

Focusing on experts in technology and science, Building Europe on Expertise delivers a new reading of European history. The authors show that modern Europe was built by experts using their unique knowledge to shape societies, set political agendas, and establish collaborations which proved decisive in integrating the continent.The Making Europe series was awarded the Freeman Award by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) in 2014, in recognition of its significant contribution to the interaction of science and technology studies with the study of innovation.

Drawing on fresh archival evidence, this book tells the story of how experts, cartels and international organizations have written the rules for Europe since around 1850. It shows that the present-day European Union was a latecomer in European integration, which is embedded in a long-term technocratic internationalist tradition.