I'd like to know what the best 5 or 6 books on the history of
technology are, hopefully with particular reference to pre-modern
technological development.

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 13 May 2005 19:43 PDT

Hello cmgay-ga,

Please tell what criteria I should use for evaluating "the best 5 or 6
books on the history of technology." There are dozens of books on the
general history of technology and many more on the history of specific
technologies. It would help if you could explain the context for your
question. Thanks.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Question by cmgay-ga on 16 May 2005 11:04 PDT

You've hit the nail on the head.  There are indeed dozens of books on
the general history of technology.  What I want to know is which one's
are really worth reading.  I'm particularly interested in the social
and political impact of various technologies, i.e., along the lines of
what Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan have done with communications
technologies.  Medieval historian Lynn White also comes to mind along
this line as well.  Basically, I have to prepare several lectures on
the history of technology as background for a graduate seminar in the
Philosophy of Technology focusing on the work of Martin Heidegger. 
The basic question, I suppose, is how - if at all - technologies have
changed the ways that we think about ourselves and our purposes in the
world.  I hope this helps.  Thanks.

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 16 May 2005 14:19 PDT

Hello cmgay-ga,

The clarification helps tremendously and I would love to work on your
question. However, the price you've set does not permit me to provide
you the quality of answer you're looking for. Since this is your first
posting on Google Answers you might find these links helpful to either
reset the price or limit the scope of what you're looking for.

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

I look forward to your clarification.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Question by cmgay-ga on 16 May 2005 16:22 PDT

Dear czh-ga,

Please see the revised list price, which perhaps will help.

cmgay-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 17 May 2005 01:38 PDT

Hello cmgay-ga,

I?ve spent a couple of hours researching your question and I haven?t
come up with any books or thinkers that clearly stand out as
appropriate for your purposes. I wonder if it would be more
appropriate for you to develop a list of journal articles or white
papers on specific areas of interest. This would be much more doable.
Here are some links to collections of sources that might be useful for
developing the list of lecture topics you want to present.

Have you already chosen your lecture topics? I?m not sure how to
proceed at this point. Please look over these links and let me know
how I can help further.

http://www.fred.net/tzaka/techne3.html
Technology and Culture -- Online Resources and Bibliography

http://www.spt.org/
Society for Philosophy and Technology

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

http://shot.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/tac_biblio.cgi
Technology and Culture ? Article Index

http://www.imss.fi.it/~tsettle/
The History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine 

I look forward to your further clarifications.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Question by cmgay-ga on 17 May 2005 15:46 PDT

Dear czh-ga,

The links you've found are very helpful, particularly for the
philosophy of technology.  Thank you.  Perhaps the way to proceed now
- that is, if you're willing to put any more time into this - would
just be to find several authors who have written generally about the
history of technological development, i.e. along the lines of Lewis
Mumford.

Thanks again,

cmgay-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 17 May 2005 16:32 PDT

Thanks cmgay-ga. I'll have something more for you later tonight.

~ czh ~

Hello again cmgay-ga,

You?ve got a happy problem in that there is a huge amount of resources
available to you to help you prepare your lectures. Instead of
spending too much time on evaluating what I found, I?m simply
providing you with resources that I hope will be helpful to you.

I?d love to take your course. Best wishes for your lectures.

~ czh ~


==================================================
ARTICLES, PAPERS, RESEARCH ? HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY
==================================================

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/p/pwhmds/techhist.html 
"Does Technology Drive History?"
A theme that appears over and over in discussions about technology is
whether or not technology is the cause of major social, cultural,
political, and economic changes in modern society.

Technological determinism comes in different forms. ? But whether as
"hard" or "soft" determinists, these commentators focus directly upon
technology as a central, even dominant, shaper of society and culture.

Other scholars reject determinism altogether. Instead of technology
driving social change, they argue that social forces shape
technologies.

A third group tries to capture the truth found in both these
positions. Historian Thomas Hughes (1987, 1994), for instance,
suggests looking at technological systems, i.e., complex networks of
artifacts, organizations, and people, rather than at individual
technologies or at technology-as-a-whole. Technological systems evolve
over time, growing more complex and interconnected.

***** This short article includes an extensive bibliography that might
be useful for you.

-------------------------------------------------


http://mt.sopris.net/mpc/index.html
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON SOCIETY

All attempts to gain information are modulated partly by the degree
that that information may tend to destabilize one's current worldview.
If mildly destabilizing, there will be mild interest. If potentially
heavily destabilizing, the usual tendency will be to throttle back
one's interest in that direction or from that source. This is not to
imply that the information isn't accurate, it's just that the
potential for deep instability that accompanies it may not be worth
gaining the information, that's all.

-------------------------------------------------


http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v1_n1n2/pitt.html
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v1_n1n2/pitt.html 
ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY, PAST AND FUTURE
Joseph C. Pitt,Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The direction SPT takes will make the difference between seeing the
philosophy of technology flourish or seeing it become marginalized.
The marginalization of the philosophy of technology is a theme I have
articulated on a number of occasions. I will rehearse some of the old
concerns below. But my old worries are not the main worry addressed
here. What I want to direct our attention to is the fact that
philosophers of science are moving rapidly into our territory, and
they are doing so without the baggage we in SPT have carried for so
long. If we don't get our act together, we may find that we have been
scooped in a fundamental way, one which removes from our purview an
area of research we should be moving into, leaving us with only the
irrelevant leftovers of our past efforts. But before I play Cassandra,
let me give some of my personal perspective on the developments of the
last twenty years, good and bad.

***** This is a long article and includes a good bibliography.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www2.hmc.edu/~tbeckman/personal/HEIDART.HTML
MARTIN HEIDEGGER AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Copyright 2000 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711

-------------------------------------------------


http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v2n2/ihde.html
WHOLE EARTH MEASUREMENTS
Don Ihde, State University of New York at Stony Brook


=============================================================
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, DIRECTORIES, PORTALS -- HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY
=============================================================

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology
History of science and technology

Prominent historians of the field
·	Johann Beckmann 
·	I. Bernard Cohen 
·	John L. Heilbron 
·	Thomas P. Hughes 
·	Daniel Kevles 
·	Thomas Kuhn 
·	Lewis Mumford 
·	Abraham Pais 
·	George Sarton 
·	Charles Singer 

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.gss.ucsb.edu/CoursesGRecent.shtml
University of California, Santa Barbara
Recent Graduate Courses

KITTLER, WOLF
German 210: The Discourse of Technology: Engineering, Philosophy, Literature, Art 

The seminar will focus on what Martin Heidegger famously called "The
Question of Technology." The question erases the boundaries between
theory and fiction, literature and art, as well as that between the
sciences and the so-called humanities. Hence, the material studied
will comprise literary and philosophical texts, examples from the
visual arts, and a few seminal works of twentieth-century engineering.
The plan is to trace the history of technology from early
twentieth-century analog media to the digital turn at the end of the
century.

***** This course sounds like the one you?re preparing for. There is a
list of a dozen texts that might help you with your lectures.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.innovationwatch.com/bks_tech_hist.htm
Books on Technology - History

-------------------------------------------------


http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/hsci/internet.htm
Internet Resources for History of Science and Technology

-------------------------------------------------


http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite/topics/technology.html
University of Amsterdam
Technology

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3621/PHILINKS.HTM
Links on the Philosophy of Technology



===============
SEARCH STRATEGY
===============

bibliography "history of technology"
history of technology
impact of technology on society
impact of technology on political systems
philosophy of technology
technology and human self-awareness
technology and human nature
"history of technology" human development
"history of technology" philosophers
"history of technology" Heidegger

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Clarification of Answer by czh-ga on 08 Jun 2005 11:04 PDT

Dear cmgay-ga,

You said, "Not quite the response I was hoping for, but helpful nonetheless." 

I am truly puzzled by your three star rating and comment after the
extensive dialogue back and forth before I posted an answer. As you
could see, I was quite willing to respond to clarification requests.
If you felt my answer was inadequate, you should have clarified until
you were satisfied. I believe in giving excellent service. I hope that
you will use the clarification process to work with the researcher
until you're satisfied on your future questions.

All the best.

~ czh ~

Not quite the response I was hoping for, but helpful nonetheless. 
Thank you very much.