Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change - Hardcover

Williams, Bern Dibner Professor Of The History Of Science & Technology Rosalind

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262232235 ISBN 13: 9780262232234

Publisher: MIT Press, 2002

Synopsis

A humanistic account of the changing role of technology in society, by a historian and a former Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education at MIT.

When Warren Kendall Lewis left Spring Garden Farm in Delaware in 1901 to enter MIT, he had no idea that he was becoming part of a profession that would bring untold good to his country but would also contribute to the death of his family's farm. In this book written a century later, Professor Lewis's granddaughter, a cultural historian who has served in the administration of MIT, uses her grandfather's and her own experience to make sense of the rapidly changing role of technology in contemporary life.

Rosalind Williams served as Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education at MIT from 1995 through 2000. From this vantage point, she watched a wave of changes, some planned and some unexpected, transform many aspects of social and working life--from how students are taught to how research and accounting are done--at this major site of technological innovation. In Retooling, she uses this local knowledge to draw more general insights into contemporary society's obsession with technology.

Today technology-driven change defines human desires, anxieties, memories, imagination, and experiences of time and space in unprecedented ways. But technology, and specifically information technology, does not simply influence culture and society; it is itself inherently cultural and social. If there is to be any reconciliation between technological change and community, Williams argues, it will come from connecting technological and social innovation--a connection demonstrated in the history that unfolds in this absorbing book.

About this title

About the Author

Rosalind Williams is Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology.

Reviews

As the subtitle of her book suggests, Williams is a cultural historian. From 1995 through 2000, she was the dean of students and undergraduate education at MIT. As a humanist at a school known mostly for engineering, she is able to offer a fresh take on the impact of technology on society. Her narrative is laced with family and childhood stories (her grandfather came to MIT in 1901, little knowing that he would never return to the family farm), which helps readers understand how technology affects us on a personal level. David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg's more scholarly Paths of Innovation also discusses the consequences of technological change, but while it provides evidence of how technological innovation in the United States led to strong economic growth, it does not delve into the social consequences. Easy to read and understand, Williams's work provides interesting insights on modern culture and our obsession with technology. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.
John B. Napp, Univ. of Toledo Lib., OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262232235
• ISBN 13: 9780262232234
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272