The Engines of Our Ingenuity An Engineer Looks at Technology and Culture

John Lienhard

ISBN 10: 0195167317 / ISBN 13: 9780195167313

Published by Oxford University Press, 2003

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 3B685E769532585

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Engines of Our Ingenuity An Engineer Looks at Technology and Culture
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195167317
• ISBN 13: 9780195167313
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Millions of people have listened to John H. Lienhard's radio program "The Engines of Our Ingenuity." In this fascinating book, Lienhard gathers his reflections on the nature of technology, culture, and human inventiveness. The book brims with insightful observations. Lienhard writes that the history of technology is a history of us--we are the machines we create. Thus farming dramatically changed the rhythms of human life and redirected history. War seldom fuels invention--radar, jets, and the digital computer all emerged before World War II began. And the medieval Church was a driving force behind the growth of Western technology--Cistercian monasteries were virtual factories, whose water wheels cut wood, forged iron, and crushed olives. Lienhard illustrates his themes through inventors, mathematicians, and engineers--with stories of the canoe, the DC-3, the Hoover Dam, the diode, and the sewing machine. We gain new insight as to who we are, through the familiar machines and technologies that are central to our lives.

About the Author

John Lienhard is the M.D. Anderson Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History at the University of Houston. He is the author and host of "The Engines of Our Ingenuity," a daily radio essay on the history of creativity and invention, heard on many public radio stations. He is also the author of Inventing Modern: Growing up with X-Rays, Skyscrapers, and Tailfins. He lives in Houston, Texas.