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Now in a thoroughly updated new edition, this successful textbook surveys the history of technology in America from the 1600s to the 21st century. Alan I Marcus and Howard P. Segal explore the effect society, culture, politics and economics have had upon technological advances, and place the evolution of American technology within the broader context of the development of systems such as transportation and communications. This unique book connects phenomena such as colonial printing presses with the American Revolution; early photographs with the creation of an allegedly unique American character; and high-tech advances in biotechnology with a growing desire for individual autonomy.
This is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of the history of technology, the history of science, and American history.
List of contents
PART 1: From the Old World to the New
1. Manufacturing America: 1607 to 1800
2. Young America and Individual Opportunity: 1800 to the 1830s
PART 2: Uniformity, Diversity, and Systematizing America
3. American Nationalism: A People and Common Material Experience, Late 1830s to 1870s
4. Communications and Power to Communicate
5. Systematizing the Fabric of American Life: The 1870s to 1920s
6. Systematizing Workers and the Workplace
PART 3: From Industrial America to Post-Industrial America
7. Technology as a Social Solution: The 1920s to the 1950s
8. Technology as a Social Solution: World War II and the Aftermath
9. Expressing the Self: Individualism in an Era of Plenty, 1950 to 1960s
10. Public and Private: Technology as a Social Question
11. Public and Private: Technology and Individual Autonomy
12. Technology and Globalization.
About the author
Alan I Marcus is Professor and Head of the Department of History at Mississippi State University, USA.Howard P. Segal is Professor of History at the History Department at the University of Maine, USA.
Summary
Now in a thoroughly updated new edition, this successful textbook surveys the history of technology in America from the 1600s to the 21st century. Alan I Marcus and Howard P. Segal explore the effect society, culture, politics and economics have had upon technological advances, and place the evolution of American technology within the broader context of the development of systems such as transportation and communications. This unique book connects phenomena such as colonial printing presses with the American Revolution; early photographs with the creation of an allegedly unique American character; and high-tech advances in biotechnology with a growing desire for individual autonomy.
This is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of the history of technology, the history of science, and American history.
