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Cultural History of Technology >> Content Detail



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The table below lists the books for the course by session. In addition, given below is a bibliography of required readings and recommended readings.

Books Recommended for Purchase


Amazon logo Smith, Merritt Roe, and Gregory Clancey, eds. Major Problems in the History of American Technology. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997. ISBN: 9780669354720. [S&C]

Amazon logo Scharff, Robert C., and Val Dusek. The Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition (An Anthology). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN: 9780631222194. [S&D]

Amazon logo Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams. Riverside ed. Annotated, edited by E. Samuels. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1973. ISBN: 9780395166208. [EHA]

Amazon logo Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World. Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1997, chapters 1, 3, and 5. ISBN: 9780684836393. (Reprint)



Symbols used in Reading Assignments


[*] = Required reading for each topic

[**] = Primary reading for each topic

[H] = Handout or inclusion in class reader

All other readings are recommended.

LEC #TOPICSREADINGS
1What is "Technology" in the Contemporary World?In-class reading: Excerpt from Amazon logo DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York, NY: Penguin, 1999, pp. 127-28. ISBN: 9780140283303.

In-class discussion and writing: What is "Technology"?
2The Context of Classical and Early Modern Philosophy[**] [S&C] "What is Technology?" pp. 1-25.

[**] [S&D] Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Kant, Rousseau. pp. ix-xi, and 1-60.

[*] Oxford English Dictionary: "Technology."

[*] [S&D] "Defining Technology." pp. 206-45.

[*] [S&C] Heilbroner, R. "Do Machines Make History?" pp. 398-404.

[S&D] Arendt, H. "The 'Vita Activa' and the Modern Age." pp. 352-68.

Heim, M. The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality.

Jonas, H. Toward a Philosophy of Technology.

[S&D] Mumford, L. "Tool-Users vs Homo Sapiens," and "The Megamachine." pp. 344-50.
3The Enlightenment and the Belief in Progress[**] [EHA] Adams, Henry. Chapters 1, 2, and 3.

[**] [S&D] Kant, and J. J. Rousseau. pp. 60-66.

[**] [S&C] Jefferson, Hamilton. "Debate over Manufactures." pp. 103-143.

Adas, M. Machines as the Measure of Men.

[S&D] Habermas, J. "Technical Progress and the Social Life-World." pp. 530-6.

[H] Hobsbawm, E. "The Industrial Revolution."

Horkheimer, and Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Jefferson, T. Notes on the State of Virginia.

Kasson, J. "The Emergence of Republican Technology." In Civilizing the Machine.

Marx, L. Machine in the Garden. pp. 145-180.

Marx, L., and B. Mazlish, eds. Progress: Fact or Illusion?

Merchant, C. The Death of Nature.

Polanyi, K. The Great Transformation.
4The Romantic Reaction[**] [H] Debate: Carlyle, T. "Spirit of the Age." and reply by Walker, T. "Defense of Mechanical Philosophy."

[*]Amazon logo Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World. Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1997, pp.1-164. ISBN: 9780684836393. (Reprint)

Abrams, M. The Mirror and the Lamp.

[H] Coleridge, S. T. "Mechanic vs Organic Form."

Emerson, R. W. "Works and Days." In Society and Solitude.

Melville, H. "The Try-Works." Chapter 96 in Moby-Dick.

Marx. Machine in the Garden.

Nye, D. American Technological Sublime.

[H] Peckham, M. "Toward a Theory of Romanticism."

Thoreau, H. D. "Sounds." Chapter IV in Walden.

Wordsworth, W. "Tintern Abbey," and Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
5The Novel[**] Amazon logo Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Norton critical ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000. ISBN: 9780393975604. (Documents on Dickens and Industrialization)

Melville, H. "The Paradise of Bachelors," and "The Tartarus of Maids."

Norris, F. The Octopus.

Sinclair, U. The Jungle.

Verne, J. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Watt, I. The Rise of the Novel.

Passos, J. Dos. Manhattan Transfer USA.

Dreiser, T. Sister Carrie.

Williams, R. The City and the Country.
6The Marxist Critique of Capitalism[**] [S&D] Marx, and Engels. "Capitalism and the Modern Labor Process." pp. 66-80.

[**] Marx, K. "Communist Manifesto, and 1844 mss," Preface to "A Critique of Political Economy." In Marx-Engel Reader.

Berman, M. All that is Solid Melts into Air.

Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity.

Hobsbawm, E. The Age of Revolution.

Marcuse, H. Eros and Civilization.

Williams, R. Marxism and Literature. pp. 75-144.
7Culture: High v. Low; Traditional v. Democratic[**] Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. Whitefish, MT: Kessigner Publishing Company, 2004. ISBN: 1419214683. (Reprint) (selections)

[**]Amazon logo Whitman, Walt. "Passage to India," and "To A Locomotive in Winter." In Leaves of Grass. New York, NY: Penguin, 2005. ISBN: 9780143039273. (Reprint)

[**]Amazon logo ———. "Democratic Vistas." In Democratic Vistas and Other Papers. Miami, FL: Fredonia Books, 2002. ISBN: 9781410100665. (Reprint)

[*]Amazon logo Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1789-1950. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780231057011.

Carlyle, T. "Signs of the Times," and Sartor Resartus.

Eagleton, T. "The Rise of Literature." In Literary Criticism.

Emerson, R. W. "The American Scholar," and "The Young American."

Freud, S. Civilization and its Discontents.

Hughes, T. Human-Built World.

Trachtenberg, A. The Incorporation of America.

Weber, M. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Williams, Rosalind. Notes on the Underground.
8Systems and Networks[**]Amazon logo Hughes, T. P. "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems." In The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780262022620.

[**] Amazon logo ———. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780801846144.

[**]Amazon logo Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000, pp. 1-76. ISBN: 9780631221401.

[*]Amazon logo Chandler, A. Chapters 1-5 in The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780674940529.

[*]Amazon logo Trachtenberg, A. The Incorporation of America. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1982, pp. 38-69. ISBN: 9780809001453.

Akin, W. Technocracy and the American Dream, The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941.

[H] Mindell, D. "Bodies, Ideas, and Dynamics."

Hughes, T. American Genesis.

Nye, D. Electrifying America.
9Modernism: Socio-Economic and Aesthetic[**]Amazon logo Adams, Henry. Chapters 19-35 in The Education of Henry Adams. Riverside ed. Annotated, edited by E. Samuels. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1973. ISBN: 9780395166208.

[*] Marinetti, et. al. Four Futurist Manifestoes.

[*]Amazon logo Shapiro, M. "The Armory Show," and "Nature of Abstract Art." In Modern Art, 19th and 20th Centuries Selected Papers. New York, NY: George Braziller, 1978. ISBN: 9780807608999.

Clark, T. J. The Painting of Modern Life.

Benjamin, W. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

Giddens, A. The Consequences of Modernity.

Giedion, S. Mechanization Takes Command.

Greenberg, C. "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," and "The Plight of Culture." In Art and Culture.

Harvey, D. The Condition of Postmodernity.

Hughes, R. The Shock of the New.

Kern, S. The Culture of Space and Time.
10Engineering: Mentality, Vocation, Institution[*]Amazon logo Noble, David. America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977, Foreward, Introduction, and chapters 1-4, pp. xi-xxvi, and 3-65. ISBN: 9780394499833.

[*] [S&C] Taylor, F. W. "Scientific Management." pp. 269-288.

[**] Veblen, Thorstein. The Engineers and the Price System. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company, 2004. ISBN: 1419260960. (Reprint)

[**]Amazon logo ———. "The Machine Process." In The Theory of Business Enterprise. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1978. ISBN: 9780878556991. (Reprint)

Aitken, H. Scientific Management in Action: Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal.

Layton, E. E. The Revolt of the Engineers.

Oldenziel, R. "Unsettled Discourses." In Making Technology Masculine. pp. 19-50.

Schatzberg, E. "The Concept of Technology." ms. to be published in T&C.

Smith, M. R. Harper's Ferry Armory and the New Technology.
11Ecological Crisis[**] Amazon logo Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1984. ISBN: 9780553247923.

[**] [H] White, L. "The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis."

Carson, R. Silent Spring.

Freud, S. Civilization and Its Discontents.

Harrison, R. P. Forests, the Shadow of Civilization.

Marsh, J. P. Man and Nature.

McKibben, W. The End of Nature.

Mumford, L. Chapters 1-2, and 14-18 in The City in History.

Cronon, W. Nature's Metropolis.

Davis, M. City of Quartz.
12What Made "Technology" Necessary?[**]Amazon logo DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York, NY: Penguin, 1999. ISBN: 9780140283303.



Bibliography for Required Readings


Amazon logo Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams. Riverside ed. Annotated, edited by E. Samuels. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1973. ISBN: 9780395166208.

Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. Whitefish, MT: Kessigner Publishing Company, 2004. ISBN: 1419214683. (Reprint)

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach."

Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature."

Amazon logo DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York, NY: Penguin, 1999. ISBN: 9780140283303.

Amazon logo Dickens, Charles. Hard Times, Norton Critical Edition. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000. ISBN: 9780393975604.

Amazon logo Heilbroner, Robert L. "Do Machines Make History?" In Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Edited by Merritt Roe Smith, and Leo Marx. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994, pp. 53-65. ISBN: 9780262691673.

Amazon logo Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1984. ISBN: 9780553247923.

Amazon logo Hughes, Thomas P. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, p. 197. ISBN: 9780801846144.

Amazon logo ———. "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems." In The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780262022620.

Kateb, George. "Technology and Philosophy." Social Research 64, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 1225-1246.

Amazon logo Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Idea in America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780195133516.

Menand, Louis. "Gross Points: Is the blockbuster the end of cinema?" The New Yorker (February 7, 2005): 82-87.

Mindell, David. "Bodies, Ideas, and Dynamics: Historical Perspectives on Systems Thinking in Engineering." Massachusetts Institute of Technology Engineering Systems Division Working Paper Series, ESD-WP-2003-01.23, ESD Internal Symposium, May 2002. (PDF)

Amazon logo Noble, David. America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977, Foreward, Introduction, and chapters 1-4. ISBN: 9780394499833.

Peckham, Morse. "Toward a Theory of Romanticism." Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 66, no. 2 (March, 1951): 5-23.

Rosen, Jonathan. "The Woodpecker In All of Us." The New York Times (May 3, 2005): A25, col. 1.

Amazon logo Scharff, Robert C., and Val Dusek. The Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition (An Anthology). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN: 9780631222194.

Amazon logo Smith, Merritt Roe, and Gregory Clancey, eds. Major Problems in the History of American Technology. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997. ISBN: 9780669354720.

Amazon logo Thoreau, Henry David. "Sounds." In Walden. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780691096124. (Reprint)

Veblen, Thorstein. The Engineers and the Price System. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company, 2004. ISBN: 1419260960. (Reprint)

Amazon logo ———. The Theory of Business Enterprise. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1978, chapters 1 and 2. ISBN: 9780878556991. (Reprint)

White, Lynn Jr. "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis." Science 155, no. 3767 (March 10, 1967): 1203-1207.

Amazon logo Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World. Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1997, chapters 1, 3, and 5. ISBN: 9780684836393. (Reprint)

Amazon logo Whitman, Walt. "Democratic Vistas." In Democratic Vistas and Other Papers. Miami, FL: Fredonia Books, 2002. ISBN: 9781410100665. (Reprint)

Amazon logo ———. "Passage to India," and "To A Locomotive in Winter." In Leaves of Grass. New York, NY: Penguin, 2005. ISBN: 9780143039273. (Reprint)

Amazon logo Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1789-1950. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780231057011.

Amazon logo Williams, Rosalind. "Afterword: an historian's view on the network society." In The Network Society: A Cross-cultural Perspective. Edited by Castells, Manuel. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2005, pp. 432-448. ISBN: 9781845424350.



Bibliography for Recommended Readings


Amazon logo Abrams, M. The Mirror and the Lamp. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1971. ISBN: 9780195014716.

Amazon logo Adas, M. Machines as the Measure of Men. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780801497605.

Amazon logo Aitken, H. Scientific Management in Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780691042411.

Amazon logo Akin, W. Technocracy and the American Dream. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977. ISBN: 9780520031104.

Amazon logo Benjamin, W. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Illuminations. New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1969. ISBN: 9780805202410.

Amazon logo Berman, M. All That is Solid Melts into Air. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1988. ISBN: 9780140109627.

Amazon logo Carlyle, T. "Signs of the Times." A Carlyle Reader. Acton, MA: Copley Publishing Group, 2000. ISBN: 9781583900086.

Amazon logo Carlyle, T. Sartor Resartus. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780192836731.

Amazon logo Carson, R. Silent Spring. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. ISBN: 9780618249060.

Amazon logo Clark, T. J. The Painting of Modern Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780691009032.

Amazon logo Cronon, W. Nature's Metropolis. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992. ISBN: 9780393308730.

Amazon logo Davis, M. City of Quartz. New York, NY: Random House, 1992. ISBN: 9780679738060.

Amazon logo Dos Passos, J. Manhattan Transfer. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003. ISBN: 9780618381869.

Amazon logo Dreiser, T. Sister Carrie. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 2004. ISBN: 9780486434681.

Amazon logo Eagleton, T. "The Rise of Literature." In Marxism and Literary Criticism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976. ISBN: 9780520032439.

Emerson, R. W. "The American Scholar," and "The Young American." Full-text online .

Amazon logo Emerson, R. W. "Works and Days." In Society and Solitude. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Fredonia Books, 2001. ISBN: 9781589634626.

Amazon logo Freud, S. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989. ISBN: 9780393301588.

Amazon logo Giddens, A. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780804718912.

Amazon logo Giedion, S. Mechanization Takes Command. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969. ISBN: 9780393004892.

Amazon logo Greenberg, C. "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," and "The Plight of Culture." In Art and Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN: 9780807066812.

Amazon logo Harrison, R. P. Forests: the Shadow of Civilization. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780226318073.

Amazon logo Harvey, D. The Condition of Postmodernity. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992. ISBN: 9780631162940.

Amazon logo Heim, M. The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780195092585.

Amazon logo Hobsbawm, E. The Age of Revolution. New York, NY: Random House, 1996. ISBN: 9780679772538.

Amazon logo Horkheimer, and Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780804736336.

Amazon logo Hughes, R. The Shock of the New. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1990. ISBN: 9780070311275.

Amazon logo Hughes, T. American Genesis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780226359274.

Amazon logo Hughes, T. Human-Built World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780226359342.

Amazon logo Jefferson, T. Notes on the State of Virginia. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1998. ISBN: 9780140436679.

Amazon logo Jonas, H. "Toward a Philosophy of Technology." In Philosophy of Technology. Edited by R. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003, pp.191-204. ISBN: 9780631222194.

Amazon logo Kasson, J. "The Emergence of Republican Technology." In Civilizing the Machine . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1999. ISBN: 9780809016204.

Amazon logo Kern, S, ed. The Culture of Space and Time. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780674021693.

Amazon logo Layton, E. E. The Revolt of the Engineers. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780801832871.

Amazon logo Marcuse, H. Eros and Civilization. Malden, MA: Beacon Press, 1974. ISBN: 9780807015551.

Amazon logo Marsh, G. P. Man and Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965. ISBN: 9780674544529.

Amazon logo Marx, L. Machine in the Garden. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 145-180. ISBN: 9780195133516.

Amazon logo Marx, L., and B. Mazlish, eds. Progress: Fact or Illusion? Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780472106769.

Amazon logo McKibben, B. The End of Nature. New York, NY: Knopf Publishing Group, 1997. ISBN: 9780385416047.

Amazon logo Melville, H. "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids." In The Encantadas and Other Stories. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. ISBN: 9780486440842.

Amazon logo Melville, H. "The Try-Works." Chapter 96 in Moby-Dick. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 2003. ISBN: 9780486432151.

Amazon logo Merchant, C. The Death of Nature. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990. ISBN: 9780062505958.

Amazon logo Mumford, L. Chapters 1-2, and 14-18 in The City in History. San Diego, CA: Harvest Books, 1968. ISBN: 9780156180351.

Amazon logo Norris, F. The Octopus. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1994. ISBN: 9780140187700.

Amazon logo Nye, D. American Technological Sublime . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780262640343.

Amazon logo Nye, D. Electrifying America . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780262640305.

Amazon logo Oldenziel, R. "Unsettled Discourses." In Making Technology Masculine. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 2004, pp. 19-50. ISBN: 9789053563816.

Amazon logo Polanyi, K. The Great Transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807056431.

Schatzberg, E. "The Concept of Technology." Forthcoming.

Amazon logo Sinclair, U. The Jungle. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 2001. ISBN: 9780486419237.

Amazon logo Smith, M. R. Harper's Ferry Armory and the New Technology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980. ISBN: 9780801491818.

Amazon logo Thoreau, H. D. "Sounds." Chapter IV in Walden. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780807014257.

Amazon logo Trachtenberg, A. The Incorporation of America. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1982. ISBN: 9780809001453.

Amazon logo Verne, J. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 2005.  ISBN: 9781416500209.

Amazon logo Watt, I. The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780520230699.

Amazon logo Weber, M. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 2003. ISBN: 9780486427034.

Amazon logo Williams, R. Marxism and Literature. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 75-144. ISBN: 9780198760610.

Amazon logo Williams, R. The Country and the City. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780195198102.

Amazon logo Williams, R. Notes on the Underground . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780262730983.

Amazon logo Wordsworth, W. "Tintern Abbey" and Preface to Lyrical Ballads . New York, NY: Routledge, 1991. ISBN: 9780415063883.


 








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