This collection of essays by leading scholars explores the numerous and brilliant facets of Lewis Mumford's insights into technology and modern culture. Characterized as one of the last of the American public intellectuals, Mumford has written extensively about those issues and problems that are most challenging and troubling for modern society. His Technics and Civilization (1934) and the two-volume The Myth of the Machine (1967 and 1970) still provide an agenda for discussion of technology and culture. Mumford foresightedly warned against simplistic technological determinism by exploring the ways in which values shape technology. He is generally recognized as a seminal figure who laid the foundations for the fields of American Studies and the History of Technology. This compelling portrait of Mumford, written in an accessible style, and exploring highly controversial, timely issues, makes a substantial contribution to the rapidly growing interest in the interaction of technology and culture, and is must reading for students of the history and sociology of science and technology, American studies, and American intellectual and cultural history.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Based on papers delivered at a University of Pennsylvania seminar in 1984, these 16 essays and an editors' preface discuss the ideas and insights of Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), perhaps America's leading "technical intellectual" of the 20th century. The material is grouped in four categories relating to Mumford's attitudinal changes: technology, progress and regionalism; the megamachine and the mechanization-organizational dichotomy; values, personality and community; the survival of hope despite the tragic misuse of technology in war. These scholarly papers may attract lay readers who are willing to struggle with complex ideas, but they will appeal primarily to students of American culture or science. The editors have collaborated on numerous books on the history of technology. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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