Enormous skyscrapers will house residents and workers who happily go ''for weeks'' without setting foot on the ground. Streamlined, ''hurricane-proof'' houses will pivot on their foundations like weather vanes. The family car will turn into an airplane so easily that ''a woman can do it in five minutes.'' Our wars will be fought by robots. And our ......
Technological Utopianism under Socialism, 1917--1989
After visiting Russia in 1921, the journalist Lincoln Steffens famously declared, ""I have seen the future, and it works."" Steffens referred to the social experiment of technological utopianism he found in the Soviet Union, where subway cars and farm tractors would carry the worker and peasantfiguratively and literallyinto the twentieth ......
A comprehensive account of the methods of knowledge production throughout human history and across the globe.
The idea that the world can be understood through patterns and the principles that govern them is one of the most important human insights—it may also be our greatest survival strategy. Our search for patterns ......
The third volume of Margaret W. Rossiter's landmark survey of the history of American women scientists focuses on the pioneering efforts and contributions of these women from 1972 to the present. Central to this story are the struggles and successes of women scientists in the era of affirmative action. Scores of previously isolated women ......
The third volume of Margaret W. Rossiter's landmark survey of the history of American women scientists focuses on the pioneering efforts and contributions of these women from 1972 to the present. Central to this story are the struggles and successes of women scientists in the era of affirmative action. Scores of previously isolated women ......
''Highly readable and exquisitely informative. Rossiter's documentation of this gloomy chapter in the history of women striving to make a place for themselves in science serves as a pungent antidote for questions concerning the fairness of affirmative action.''Journal of American History''What we have here is a remarkable example of historian as ......
''A splendid book . . . Rossiter's tone in recounting [the struggle of women scientists] is never strident. A clear enough case emerges from the sources that she skillfully weaves into a tapestry of social trends and individual experience.''New York Times In this landmark study, Margaret Rossiter describes the activities and personalities of the ......
Technologies of Tracking and the Making of Modern Wildlife
American wildlife biologists first began fitting animals with radio transmitters in the 1950s. By the 1980s the practice had proven so useful to scientists and nonscientists alike that it became global. Wired Wilderness is the first booklength study of the origin, evolution, use, and impact of these nowcommonplace tracking technologies.Combining ......
''The biggest contribution of Vincenti's splendidly crafted book may well be that it offers us a believably human image of the engineer.''--Technology Review.Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology.Merritt Roe Smith, Series Editor.
All Species of Opinion from Scientists, Sages, Friends, and Enemies Who Met, Read, and Discussed the Naturalist Who Changed the World
Charles Darwin and his revolutionary ideas inspired pundits the world over to put pen to paper. In this unique dictionary of quotations, Darwin scholar Thomas Glick presents fascinating observations about Darwin and his ideas from such notable figures as P. T. Barnum, Anton Chekhov, Mahatma Gandhi, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King, Mao Tsetung, Pius ......
Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth-Century America
Patrick M. Malone demonstrates how innovative engineering helped make Lowell, Massachusetts, a potent symbol of American industrial prowess in the 19th century. Waterpower spurred the industrialization of the early United States and was the principal power for textile manufacturing until well after the Civil War. Industrial cities therefore grew ......
Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth-Century America
Patrick M. Malone demonstrates how innovative engineering helped make Lowell, Massachusetts, a potent symbol of American industrial prowess in the 19th century. Waterpower spurred the industrialization of the early United States and was the principal power for textile manufacturing until well after the Civil War. Industrial cities therefore grew ......
Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks after the Roman Empire
Focusing attention on gravity-fed water-flow systems in medieval cities and monasteries, Water Technology in the Middle Ages: Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks after the Roman Empire challenges the view that hydraulic engineering died with the Romans and remained moribund until the Renaissance. Roberta Magnusson explores the systems' ......
The "conflict thesis"-the idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion-has long been part of popular imagination. In The Warfare between Science and Religion, Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the ......
Consumer Struggles with Personal Technologies, from Clocks and Sewing Machines to Cars and Computers
We've all been there. Seduced by the sleek designs and smart capabilities of the newest gadgets, we end up stumped by their complicated set-up instructions and exasperating error messages. In this fascinating history, Joseph J. Corn maps two centuries of consumer frustration and struggle with personal technologies.Aggravation with the new machines ......
Technological choices depend on, and are part of, contests over political power, as the history of mass transit vividly illustrates. From horsedrawn omnibuses to subways to light rail, this volume highlights the technological and social struggles that have accompanied urbanization and the need for an efficient and costeffective means of ......
How do you trap someone in a lie? For centuries, all manner of truth-seekers have used the lie detector. In this eye-opening book, Geoffrey C. Bunn unpacks the history of this device and explores the interesting and often surprising connection between technology and popular culture.The lie detector figures prominently in many headline-producing ......
For the past 450 years, tree-like branching diagrams have been created to show the complex and surprising interrelationships of organisms, both living and fossil, from viruses and bacteria to birds and mammals.
A History of Chemistry from Alchemy to the Buckyball
Chemistry explores the way atoms interact, the constitution of the stars, and the human genome. Knowledge of chemistry makes it possible for us to manufacture dyes and antibiotics, metallic alloys, and other materials that contribute to the necessities and luxuries of human life. In Transforming Matter, noted historian Trevor H. Levere emphasizes ......
Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962-1986 (POD)
Over the course of several decades, the Pentagon's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) helped transform computing from a cumbersome enterprise based on batch processing to the instantly interactive, graphically rich, highly intelligent computing of today. With the purpose of improving command and control systems for the military, IPTO ......
To many people in the nineteenth century, the railroad and the telegraph were powerful, transformative forces, ones that seemed to work closely together to shape the economy, society, and politics of the United States. However, the perception'both popular and scholarly'of the intrinsic connections between these two institutions has largely ......
Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology
The metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistor is the fundamental element of digital electronics. The tens of millions of transistors in the home of a typical Americanin personal computers, automobiles, appliances, and toysare almost all MOS transistors. To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology is ......
Using the biblical dictum, 'the tree is known by its fruit', the author surveys the historical record left by the defenders of faith and the proponents of reason. His analysis challenges the commonly held belief that despite its many abuses religion on balance civilised the world.
Automating the US Air Force Fighter Pilot in Air-to-Air Combat, 1950198 0
Spurred by their commanders during the Korean War to be "tigers," aggressive and tenacious American fighter pilots charged headlong into packs of fireball-spewing enemy MiGs, relying on their keen eyesight, piloting finesse, and steady trigger fingers to achieve victory. But by the 1980s, American fighter pilots vanquished their ......
On April 13, 1970, some 205,000 miles from Earth, an explosion rocked the moon-bound Apollo 13, taking our both engines of the command module and crippling the life-support system. Guided by the ground crew in Huston, the crew took refuge in the lunar module and used its engines, almost in the fashion of an outboard motor, to maneuver the craft ......
The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century
Thinking with Objects offers a fresh view of the transformation that took place in mechanics during the 17th century. By giving center stage to objects -- levers, inclined planes, beams, pendulums, springs, and falling and projected bodies -- Domenico Bertoloni Meli provides a unique and comprehensive portrayal of mechanics as practitioners ......
The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century
Thinking with Objects offers a fresh view of the transformation that took place in mechanics during the 17th century. By giving center stage to objectslevers, inclined planes, beams, pendulums, springs, and falling and projected bodiesDomenico Bertoloni Meli provides a unique and comprehensive portrayal of mechanics as practitioners understood ......
The science of ballistics has a long history and starts with one question: How does a projectile move through the air? Even before physicists worked that one out, military engineers had been tinkering with ballistic devices for centuries. The trebuchet of the Middle Ages has given way to rocket power, and the science of ballistics has evolved to ......
The science of ballistics has a long history and starts with one question: How does a projectile move through the air? Even before physicists worked that one out, military engineers had been tinkering with ballistic devices for centuries. The trebuchet of the Middle Ages has given way to rocket power, and the science of ballistics has evolved to ......
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. This title contains Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original pagination with Darwin's indexes retained.
The Geology of the Voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle, Part III: Geological O
This is the first complete edition containing all of Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original paginations with Darwin's indexes retained
The Geology of the Voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle, Part II: Geological Ob
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. This title reviews Darwin's public literary output, as well as his scientific journal articles, his private notebooks, and his correspondence. It contains Darwin's published books.
The Geology of the Voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle, Part I: Structure and
This is the first complete edition containing all of Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original paginations with Darwin's indexes retained
The Zoology of the Voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle, Part IV: Fish and Part
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. This title reviews Darwin's public literary output, as well as his scientific journal articles, his private notebooks, and his correspondence. It contains Darwin's published books.
