Technology and History: "Kranzberg's Laws"

Eugene S. Ferguson , "La Fondation des machines modemes: des dessins," Culture technique 14 (June 1985): 182-207. Culture technique is the publication of the Centre de Recherche sur la Culture Technique, located in Paris under the direction of Jocelyn de Noblet. The June 1983 edition of Culture technique, dedicated to Technology and Culture, contained French translations of a number of articles from the SHOT journal.

Jacques Ellul , The Technological Society (New York, 1964)

, and Langdon Winner , Autonomous Technology: Technics Out-of-Control as a Theme in Political History (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).

Lynn White , Jr. , Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1962), p. 28.

E.g., Christopher Lasch , The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times (New York, 1984 )

Quoted in Dennis H. Wrong , "The Case against Modernity," New York Time Book Review, October 28, 1984, p. 7.

Fernand Braudel , The Structures of Everyday Life, vol. 1 of Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century ( New York, 1981).

E.g. T.S. Ashton , The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 (Oxford, 1948)

, and David S. Landes , The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge , 1969).

Nicholas Rescher , Unpopular Essays on Technological Progress ( Pittsburgh , 1980).

The "New Directions" program session at the 1985 SHOT annual meeting indicated that historians of technology are continuing to broaden their concerns and are indeed investigating new areas of the sociocultural context in relation to technological developments.

Hugh G.J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio ( New York, 1976).

Thomas P. Hughes , "Inventors: The Problems They Choose, the Ideas They Have, and the Inventions They Make," in Technological Innovation: A Critical Review of Current Knowledge , ed. Patrick Kelly and Melvin Kranzberg (San Francisco, 1978), pp. 166-182).

David A. Hounshell , From the American System to Mass Production 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, 1984), chap. 6.

Thomas P. Hughes , Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983), p. ix.

Edward W. Constant , The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore, 1980). This book was awarded the Dexter Prize by SHOT in 1982.

Stuart W. Leslie , "Charles F. Kettering and the Copper-cooled Engine," Technology and Culture 20 (October 1979):752-776.

Eugene B. Skolnikoff states , "Technology alters the physical reality, but is not the key determinant of the political changes that ensue," in The International Imperatives of Technology: Technological Development and the International Political System (Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Institute of International Studies,n.d.), p.2.

Speaking of the Bhopal tragedy, President John S. Morris of Union College has said: "Methyl isocyanate makes it possible to grow good crops and feed millions of people, but it also involves risks. And analyzing risks is not a simple matter" (New York Times , April 14, 1985).

Daniel A. Koshland , "The Undesirability Principle," Science 229 (July 5 1985):9.

See Dorothy Nelkin, ed., Controversy: The Politics of Ethical Decisions (Santa Monica, Calif., 1984).

Aaron Wildavsky , "No Risk Is the Highest Risk of All," American Scientist 67 (1979 ): 32-37.

Gerda Lerner , "The Necessity of History and the Professional Historian," Journal of American History 69 (June 1982): 7-20.

Eugene D. Genovese , "To Celebrate a Life- Biography as History," Humanities 1 (January-February 1980): 6

An analysis of today's low state of the history profession is to be found in Richard O. Curry and Lawrence D. Goodheart , "Encounters with Clio: The Evolution of Modem American Historical Writing," OAH Newsletter 12 (May 1984): 28-32.

Brooke Hindle , "The Exhilaration of Early American Technology: A New Look," in The History of American Technology: Exhilaration or Discontent? ed. David A. Hounshell ( Wilmington, Del. 1984).

See especially Cyril Stanley Smith's Usher Prize article, "Art, Technology, and Science: Notes on Their Historical Interaction," Technology and Culture 11 (October 1970): 493-549.

See David Billington's Dexter Prize-winning book, Robert Maillart's Bridges: The Art of Engineering (Princeton, N.J., 1979)

and "Bridges and the New Art of Structural Engineering," American Scientist 72 (January-February 1984): 22-31.

Stanley N. Katz , "The Scholar and the Public," Humanities 6 (June 1985): 14-15.

Ruth S. Cowan , More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave ( New York, 1983), chap. 5.