The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science) [Paperback]

George Basalla (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 1989 | ISBN-10: 0521296811 | ISBN-13: 978-0521296816

Presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based on recent scholarship in the history of technology and on relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. Challenges the popular notion that technological advances arise from the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions that owe little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies drawn selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that long have been available to humanity. The second theme is necessity: the mistaken belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological needs such as food, shelter, and defense. And the third theme is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of the novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological process.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mr. Basalla argues his case ingeniously and cites a variety of examples...the reader is astonished again and again at the ease with which Mr. Basalla overturns many cherished prejudices and preconceptions about inventors and their creations." New York Times Book Review

"George Basalla has done scholars a valuable service...(his)own insights at an intermediate level of analysis may well provide the building blocks for a more rigorous and sophisticated theory of technological change." Science

"A thoughtful and thought provoking analysis drawing on a wide range of historical examples that will be of use to scholars and students." - Science, Technology and Society

"a refreshing book...a lively and revealing perspective on the history of technology. This book should find its way into undergraduate courses." American Scientist

"Both the tech-happy and the tech-wary will find news in this view of technology as an evolutionary system. Fascinating case studies show how society-bending inventions - even 'breakthroughs' - proceed from small, incremental variations upon earlier inventions." Whole Earth Catalog

Book Description

Three emerging themes challenge the popular notion that technology advances through the efforts of a few who produce a series of revolutionary inventions that owe little or nothing to the technological past.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 24, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521296811
• ISBN-13: 978-0521296816
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars continuous improvements, March 1, 2005

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science) (Paperback)

In considering the role of major inventions in history, there have been two major views. This book puts forward one of them. Namely that technological progress can be understood in part by analogy to biological evolution, as a series of continuous and incremental innovations, that arise out of the gestalt of the inventor's environment. The authors argue eloquently, with much cited research to buttress their arguments.

Certainly, most inventions are indeed incremental gains in understanding. But one might say that if you take the evolution analogy, there is also a corresponding hypothesis akin to punctuated equilibrium. Namely that sometimes, an inventor or scientist really does make a fundamental discontinuity in understanding. In a way that a continuously innovative procedure would have been extremely unlikely to garner. In science at least, the best examples may be Einstein's General Relativity, and Claude Shannon's Information Theory. Nothing like either was even remotely contemplated by their contemporaries. Ok, granted, the book talks about technology, not science. But at some fundamental level, the discussion of progress encompasses both.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Do Technologies 'Evolve'?, February 25, 2007

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Steve Ruskin (Colorado, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science) (Paperback)

Basalla's 'Evolution of Technology' makes the analogy to biological evolution to explain the development of technologies: the Paleolithic chipping stone becomes the crude stone-and-wood hammer which later becomes a cast-iron hammer which eventually becomes the giant mechanical steam hammer. Of course, thinking of technology in such evolutionary terms can ONLY be analogical--tools don't have genes, and they certainly don't procreate. What tools and technologies have is diversity (a key component in evolutionary change); however, it takes human needs--necessities--to bring about technological developments. This historical combination of technological diversity and human necessity is "evolution" for Basalla.

Basalla's argument is therefore a practical method for thinking about the history of technology--one of a number of different methods (for other alternatives see anything by Arnold Pacey, or the 'Short History of Technology' by Derry and Williams). And in this respect Basalla offers a fine approach. In fact, his book may well be the most readable history of technological progress available, but it is also one that places more weight on a single analogy than the analogy itself may be able to bear.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How does technology evolve over time?, November 30, 2008

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Jackal (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science) (Paperback)

Fascinating study on the evolution of technology from a variation and selection perspective. The book is written by a historian, but unusually for a historian the book is driven by a strong theoretical perspective.

The author uses the example of barbed wire, but he does not just report a lot of historical details. He also places those details in perspective by using an evoluationary model of technical change. That makes this author 100 times more interesting than had the author that just gives us historical facts.