The maze of ingenuity: Ideas and idealism in the development of technology - Hardcover

Pacey, Arnold

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713905921 ISBN 13: 9780713905922

Publisher: Lane, 1974

Synopsis

From cathedrals to star wars, Arnold Pacey looks at the interaction of technologies and society over the last thousand years and uses that survey to argue for a more humane form of future technological development. The second edition of The Maze of Ingenuity concentrates on Europe and North America and incorporates recent insights from the history and sociology of technology. A new series of chapters extends Pacey's discussion of the role of ideas and ideals in technology in the period since the industrial revolution. Arnold Pacey has taught the history of science and technology at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Work on this new edition has been carried on in parallel with tutorial teaching for an Open University course entitled "Technology and Change."Contents: The Cathedral Builders: European Technical Achievement between 1100 and 1280. A Century of Invention: 1250-1350. Mathematics and the Arts: 1450-1600. The Practical Arts and the Scientific Revolution. Social Ideals in Technical Change: German Miners and English Puritans, 1450-1650. The State and Technical Progress: 1660-1770. Technology in the Industrial Revolution. Conflicting Ideals in Engineering: America and Britain, 1790-1870. Institutionalizing Technical Ideals, 1820-1920. Idealistic Trends in Twentieth-Century Technology.

About this title

About the Author

Arnold Pacey is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University, Britain. He is the author of The Culture of Technology (MIT Press, 1983), Technology and World Civilization (MIT Press, 1991), and The Maze of Ingenuity, second edition (MIT Press, 1992).

Review

"Here is a book that should immediately be put into paperback and placed in the hands of undergraduates everywhere and in all disciplines. Its subject matter ranges from the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages to the prophets of systems analysis in our own century. Yet Dr. Pacey is nowhere superficial" Nature (review of first edition)

Edition details

• Publisher: Lane
• Publication date: 1974
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713905921
• ISBN 13: 9780713905922
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 350