Technology in America, third edition: A History of Individuals and Ideas (Mit Press) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262535777 ISBN 13: 9780262535779

Publisher: The MIT Press, 2018

Synopsis

The new edition of a popular collection that traces the history of American invention from the age of the artisan to the era of Silicon Valley.

This volume traces the history of American technology—its inventions and inventors—from the age of the artisan to the era of Silicon Valley. The focus on inventors acknowledges that technology is a fundamental form of human behavior and that, ultimately, it is people who have the ideas, design the machines, and build the institutions. These accessible and succinct essays chronicle the work of the famous—among them, Thomas Jefferson, Eli Whitney, and Thomas Alva Edison—and of the sometimes forgotten—including Ellen Swallow Richards, the founder of the home economics movement. One illuminating essay shows how Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin helped Americans confront the modern technological age.
This third edition retains the content of the first two editions and adds three new essays: on Rachel Carson and the rise of the environmental movement; on A. C. Gilbert and the development of an American toy industry; and on Lewis Latimer and the struggle of African Americans to gain recognition as professional inventors and engineers.

Contributors
Lawrence Badash, George Basalla, Robert V. Bruce, Jean Christie, Gail Cooper, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, James J. Flink, Barton C. Hacker, Samuel P. Hays, Brooke Hindle, Thomas Parke Hughes, Reese V. Jenkins, John A. Kouwenhoven, Edwin T. Layton Jr., W. David Lewis, Hugo A. Meier, Carroll Pursell, Adam Rome, Bruce Sinclair, Merritt Roe Smith, Darwin H. Stapleton, John William Ward, James C. Williams

About this title

About the Author

Carroll Pursell is Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History (Emeritus) at Case Western Reserve University and Distinguished Honorary Professor of History at the Australian National University.

Merritt Roe Smith is Cutten Professor of the History of Technology at MIT and the author or editor of six books, most recently Inventing America: A History of the United States.

Bruce Sinclair, formerly Melvin Kranzberg Professor of the History of Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is a Senior Fellow at the Dibner Institute at MIT. He has served as president of the Society for the History of Technology and received its Da Vinci Medal.

Carroll Pursell is Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History (Emeritus) at Case Western Reserve University and Distinguished Honorary Professor of History at the Australian National University.

Thomas P. Hughes is Professor of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Carroll Pursell is Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History (Emeritus) at Case Western Reserve University and Distinguished Honorary Professor of History at the Australian National University.

James J. Flink is an affiliate of the Institute of Transportation Studies and Professor of Comparative Culture at the University of California, Irvine.

Carroll Pursell is Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History (Emeritus) at Case Western Reserve University and Distinguished Honorary Professor of History at the Australian National University.

Lawrence Badash was Professor Emeritus of History of Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He authored Kapitza, Rutherford, and the Kremlin and Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons: From Fission to the Limited Test Ban Treaty.

From the Back Cover

'Technology In America' cover the history of American invention from Thomas Jefferson's founding of the Patent Office to Robert Goddard's space-age rockets. Each treats an individual and a concept, highlighting the important role technological change has played in the evolution of American culture.

Edition details

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262535777
• ISBN 13: 9780262535779
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 356
• Editor: Pursell Carroll