ISBN: 026266075X 9780262660754

Category: Science / History

Page count: 318

From cathedrals to star wars, Arnold Pacey looks at the interaction of technologies and society over the last thousand years and uses that survey to argue for a more humane form of future technological development. The second edition of <i>The Maze of Ingenuity</i> concentrates on Europe and North America and incorporates recent insights from the history and sociology of technology. A new series of chapters extends Pacey's discussion of the role of ideas and ideals in technology in the period since the industrial revolution.<p><b>Contents<br></b>The Cathedral Builders: European Technical Achievement between 1100 and 1280 • A Century of Invention: 1250-1350 • Mathematics and the Arts: 1450-1600 • The Practical Arts and the Scientific Revolution • Social Ideals in Technical Change: German Miners and English Puritans, 1450-1650 • The State and Technical Progress: 1660-1770 • Technology in the Industrial Revolution • Conflicting Ideals in Engineering: America and Britain, 1790-1870 • Institutionalizing Technical Ideals, 1820-1920 • Idealistic Trends in Twentieth-Century Technology</p>