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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... directions. But at what risk, and to whom? Advancing technology has also meant that risks may be devastating but long-delayed, beyond our capacity to detect at the outset. What is an acceptable role for government monitoring and ...
... directions. Further perspectives are provided by corporate strategists and makers and critics of federal policies for technology. Although I have tried to draw judiciously upon all these sources, this book primarily embodies the reflect ...
... directions of research are set, sustained, and changed. Another focused on the linkages between science and society—with technology firstamong them. As such, it may be reasonable to think of this essay in some respects as a vast ...
... direction and processes of technological change that span fiveor six millennia, I admittedly run the risk of comparing entities and their social contexts that are too fundamentally different to sustain the effort. But rewarding ...
... direction for a considerably more ambitious enterprise. Until the fall of 1993, however, with administrative responsibilities at the Smithsonian Institution continually supervening, my efforts were largely confinedto a progressively ...
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 |