Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western TechnologyPrinceton University Press, 2012 M09 17 - 360 páginas Technology, perhaps the most salient feature of our time, affects everything from jobs to international law yet ranks among the most unpredictable facets of human life. Here Robert McC. Adams, renowned anthropologist and Secretary Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, builds a new approach to understanding the circumstances that drive technological change, stressing its episodic, irregular nature. The result is nothing less than a sweeping history of technological transformation from ancient times until now. Rare in antiquity, the bursts of innovations that mark the advance of technology have gradually accelerated and now have become an almost continuous feature of our culture. Repeatedly shifting in direction, this path has been shaped by a host of interacting social, cultural, and scientific forces rather than any deterministic logic. Thus future technological developments, Adams maintains, are predictable only over the very short term. |
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... dependent or independent variable—dr iven or driver? Only by large-scale comparison, beginning in the ancient world and progressing to the modern, could these questions reasonably be addressed. My own growing interest in these questions ...
... to many heterogeneous, often confli cting influences. Characterized as “path-dependent” for this reason, it is cumulative and yet. Paths. of. Fire: The. Idea. of. Technological. Change. 1. Paths of Fire: The Idea of Technological Change.
An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western Technology Robert M. Adams. as “path-dependent” for this reason, it is cumulative and yet largely lacks broad as well as specificregularities of process. A second conclusion is that the closest ...
... dependent, in the firstinstance, on accumulated insights and capabilities stemming from earlier discoveries. And surely no less important than this technical heritage was the role of potential users, consumers, or investors. Frequently ...
... dependent, more prone to occur in closely interrelated clusters, and likewise more transformative in the scale and scope of their consequences. No less important, they do not adhere strictly to their finder or creator, but are shared ...
Contenido
3 | |
36 | |
3 Technology and the New European Society | 69 |
4 England as the Workshop of the World | 104 |
The American System Emerges | 138 |
6 The United States Succeeds to Industrial Leadership | 173 |
7 The Competitive Global System | 212 |
Technological Change in a Borderless World | 253 |
Notes | 279 |
References Cited | 301 |
Index | 327 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western Technology Robert M. Adams Vista previa limitada - 2012 |
Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist's Inquiry Into Western Technology Robert McCormick Adams Sin vista previa disponible - 1996 |