In this section, we will be presenting books authored by members of ICOHTEC, or other outstanding works on history of technology. If you wish to see your book, or something you would like to share with others, feel free to send your proposal through this link.
This study offers both an account of twentieth-century technology in the Netherlands and a view of Dutch history through the lens of technology. It describes the trajectory of modernization through technology in certain characteristically Dutch contexts—including the omnipresence of water, the pervasiveness of urbanization coupled with a high-tech agricultural sector, and the legacy of colonialism—but at the same time makes it clear that Dutch struggles over technology choices, infrastructure development, mass production, and the role of government are comparable to the experience of any Western industrialized country.
Reviews:
"In this thoughtful and synthetic work, contested modernization yields a fresh interpretation of twentieth-century Dutch history. Changes in technology, consumption, war, the nation state, colonialism—even the efforts of activist Dutch housewives--are clearly in view. This is an account alive to the nuances of the distinctive Dutch experience with modernity." Thomas J. Misa, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, coeditor of Urban Machinery
The Illusory Boundary: Environment and Technology in History
Martin Reuss and Stephen H. Cutcliffe (eds.)
Publisher:
University of Virginia Press
Year
2010
Binding
hardback/paperback, 328 pages
Language:
English
ISBN-10:
9780813929897
ISBN-13:
978-0813929897
From the back matter:
ICOHTEC sessions dealing with technology and the environment between 1998 and 2000 laid the foundation for the creation of Envirotech, a special interest group in the Society for the History of Technology and the American Society for Environmental History. The Illusory Boundary is an exciting collection of essays coming from Enivrotech and, in a very real sense, stems from the pioneering sessions in technology and environment at ICOHTEC symposia.
The view that nature and technology inhabit totally different, even opposite, spheres persists across time and cultures. Most people would consider an English countryside or a Louisiana bayou to be "natural," though each is to an extent the product of technology. Pollution, widely thought to be a purely man-made phenomenon, results partly from natural processes. All around us, things from the natural world are brought into the human world. At what point do we consider them part of culture rather than nature? And does such a distinction illuminate our world or obscure its workings? [more]
Contributors: Peter Coates * Craig E. Colten * Stephen H. Cutcliffe * Hugh S. Gorman * Betsy Mendelsohn * Joy Parr * Peter C. Perdue * Sara B. Pritchard * Martin Reuss * William D. Rowley * Edmund Russell * Joel A. Tarr * Ann Vileisis * James C. Williams * Thomas Zeller
Science for Welfare and Warfare investigates the establishment of state-led science and technology in the economic and industrial development of Cold War Sweden. Written by Swedish historians the book examines how the state gradually took on a new role during and after the Second World War, how this role was justified and how it thoroughly transformed the Swedish society and economy over a few decades. In virtually all sectors of society, government committees were assigned to survey the needs and propose reforms, new institutions were formed to house and provide the necessary expertise, and large-scale technological programmes were launched. These comprehensive reforms resulted in the strong state that came to characterize Cold War Sweden – a state consisting of both welfare institutions and warfare machinery. The contributing authors demonstrate that science- and technology-minded actors by and large both designed and carried out these reforms. Science for Welfare and Warfare describes these architects, economists, engineers and scientists with ambitions to plan and build the society as reform technocrats. In order to realize their beliefs and visions, the reform technocrats needed reasons grand enough to justify a strong state commitment. The reasons they referred to were either to create welfare or to maintain national independence – or both.
This book is the only comprehensive study on the German Autobahn in English language. Guided by the theory of infrastructure the book addresses the traffic policy in the Weimar Republic and in the NS dictatorship and focuses on various regional lines, as
Bonn – Cologne, Frankfurt – Heidelberg and Munich – Salzburg.
