Making Waves: Engineering, Politics, and the Social Management of Technology

As the first science adviser to Congress and as adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon, Edward Wenk has seen firsthand both the benefits and the dilemmas created by technology - and the urgent need to recognize the powerful consequences of technological choice. The future will find Americans more reliant on technology. But will they be less in control of how it affects their lives?
Wenk's years of closely watching the influence of technology on public policy and politics make his warnings profound. Exploring the potentially explosive convergence of politics and technology, with tough-minded analysis of examples from space exploration to the Exxon Valdez, Wenk issues a call for greater civic competence, as producers and consumers of technology, as investors, as potential victims, and as voters. Otherwise, the very substance of democracy is at stake - as the politics of technology develops a powerful counterpart in the extraordinary influence of electronic media and computers, the technology of politics.

Edward Wenk, Jr., is professor emeritus of engineering and public affairs at the University of Washington.