The Broken Machine - Histories of Technology, Social Order, and the Self

A cultural history of technological breakdown, social order, and the self in the modern Atlantic World. Tracing this politics of breakdown and belonging across two centuries and two continents, the book rewrites five well-known episodes in the history of technology--influential histories that we thought we knew: the politics of the guillotine during the French Revolution; the causes of railway accidents and the rise of “systems” as a tool of self-responsibility and self-governance in Victorian Britain; the surprising antebellum history of breakdown in American slave cultures; the Gantt Chart’s origins as a Progressive-Era tool for linking failure as a condition of industrial machinery to failure as a kind of person in the United States; and, finally, the electronic malfunctions during the Cold War, which helped define the rational selves underpinning Western democracy.

Détails du produit

• Auteurs: Edward Jones-Imhotep
• Edition: The MIT Press
• Langues: Anglais
• Format d'édition: Livre de poche
• Sortie: 02.06.2026
• EAN: 9780262553346
• ISBN: 978-0-262-55334-6
• Pages: 262
• Catégories: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / History, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, History of engineering and technology, Social and cultural anthropology, Impact of science & technology on society, History of engineering & technology, Impact of science and technology on society