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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... marketing uncertainties, and a host of technical problems of varying difficulty. It may be little more than a matter of chance whether attention is initially focused on strengthening the weakest link in the chain PATHS OF FIRE 25.
An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western Technology Robert M. Adams. initially focused on strengthening the weakest link in the chain or on some other, temporarily more urgent problem. Even if purely technological considerations ...
... initially very high. The rate falls, however, as the potential number of contacts declines with the declining proportion of the population that is uninfected. Ultimately, near-stability is reached. The difficultywith the epidemic model ...
... initially unwilling to pursue a patent for the laser, on the grounds that electromagnetic transmissions on optical frequencies were of no importance for the Bell System's interests in communications.74 There is no significantevidence ...
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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 |