Men, Machines and Modern Times [Hardcover]

Elting Elmore Morison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1966

Men, Machines, and Modern Times, though ultimately concerned with a positive alternative to an Orwellian 1984, offers an entertaining series of historical accounts taken from the nineteenth century to highlight a main theme: the nature of technological change, the fission brought about in society by such change, and society's reaction to that change.Beginning with a remarkable illustration of resistance to innovation in the U.S. Navy following an officer's discovery of a more accurate way to fire a gun at sea, Elting Morison goes on to narrate the strange history of the new model steamship, the Wapanoag, in the 1860s. He then continues with the difficulties confronting the introduction of the pasteurization process for milk; he traces the development of the Bessemer process; and finally, he considers the computer. While the discussions are liberally sprinkled with amusing examples and anecdotes, all are related to the more profound and current problem of how to organize and manage system of ideas, energies, and machinery so that it will conform to the human dimension.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is the most brilliant, original, and absorbing book in American history I have read for some time." Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 235 pages
• Publisher: MIT Press; 1St Edition edition (December 1966)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262130254
• ISBN-13: 978-0262130257
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,216,398 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on the process of transformation, April 11, 2002

By 

Newt Gingrich (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
("THE")   

This review is from: Men, Machines, and Modern Times (Paperback)

This is purely and simply one of the best books ever written on the process of innovation and the interaction of technology, culture, systems, and individual personalities. If you are interested in the process of transformation or the development of technological change then this book should be on your short list. It should be required reading at every senior military school and for anyone who is really interested in transforming the health system.

This slender volume is actually a series of lectures given between 1950 and 1966 at Cal Tech and was influenced by a 15 year process of dialogue in a regular monthly meeting on the subject of technology and society. It reflects the insights and wisdom of a lifetime of thought about people and technology.

For those who care about transforming military institutions the chapters on Lieutenant Sims' reform of naval gunnery in 1900 and on the building of the best steam warship in the world in 1868 are marvels of bureaucracy confronting technology.

Consider just a few insights from Morison:

"It is possible, if one sets aside the long-run social benefits, to look upon invention as a hostile act--a dislocation of existing schemes, a way of disturbing the comfortable bourgeois routines and calculations, a means of discharging the restlessness with arrangements and standards that arbitrarily limit." (p.9)

When Sims reports remarkable success with a new system of gunnery he has learned from an innovative British officer ((Percy Scott) there are three stages of response from Washington:

"At first there was no response. The reports were simply filed away and forgotten. Some indeed, it was later discovered to Sims's delight, were half eaten away by cockroaches,
"Second stage; It is never pleasant for any man's best work to be left unnoticed by superiors and it was an unpleasantness that Sims suffered extremely ill.
"Besides altering his tone, he took another step to be sure his views would receive attention, He sent copies of his reports to other officers in the fleet. Aware as a result that Sims's gunnery claims were being circulated and talked about, the men in Washington were then stirred to action. "p29

The response was first that our ships were as good as the British so the problem was with the men and that meant the officers were not doing their job. "most significant: continuous-aim fire was impossible. Experiments had revealed that five men at work on the elevating gear of a six-inch gun could not produce the power necessary to compensate for a roll of five degrees in ten seconds. These experiments and calculations demonstrated beyond peradventure or doubts that Scott's system of gunfire was not possible." p. 30, note this is about a system that was actually being used with amazingly more accurate results. Sims' reform was not a theory it was an existing fact, which the Navy simply denied.

As Morison notes "Only one difficulty is discoverable in these arguments: they were wrong at important points."
"In every way I find this second stage, the apparent resort to reason, the most entertaining and instructive in our investigation of the responses to innovation." p. 30

"Third stage: the rational period in the counterpoint between Sims and the Washington men was soon passed. It was followed by the third stage, that of name calling." p.30

As things got worse Simms took the ultimate risk "he, a lieutenant, took the extraordinary step of writing the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, to inform him of the remarkable record of Scoot's ships, of the inadequacy of our own gunnery routines and records, and of the refusal of the Navy Department to act. Roosevelt, who always liked to respond to such appeals when he could, brought Sims back from China late in 1902 and installed him as Inspector of Target Practice, a post the naval officer held throughout the remaining six years of the Administration. And when he left, after many spirited encounters we cannot here investigate, he was universally acclaimed as 'the man who taught us how to shoot." p.31

Morison concludes "the deadlock between those who sought change and those who sought to retain things as they were was broken only by an appeal to superior force, a force removed from and unidentified with the mores, conventions, devices of the society. This seems to me a very important point; the naval society in 1900 broke down in its effort to accommodate itself to a new situation. The appeal to Roosevelt is documentation for Mahan's great generalisation that no military service should or can undertake to reform itself. It must seek assistance from outside. " p.38

Whatever field of change interests you this is a book well worth reading and thinking about.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 18th century technology, January 19, 2002

By 

J. Mastrud "brother jay" (Minneapolis, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Men, Machines, and Modern Times (Paperback)

A superb look at the wonderous and creative spirit that enabled the twentieth century to excel in engineering and science.
The events depicted in the book tell of an age where the industrial revolution was nacent and men brimmed with ideas on how to construct and create a new society for mankind. A fine read for anyone interested in the art of technology and of engineering history in the U.S.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless wisdom, January 23, 2001

By 

"haly2k1" (Fairfax, Va) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Men, Machines, and Modern Times (Paperback)

Elting Morison was a historian .. at MIT. I thought that curious, until I read his book. In a serious of beautifully wirtten historical essays, he traces the development and introduction of revolutionaly new processes or techiniques which profoundly changed the way things were done. But most interesting, and instructive, are the insights he provides as to what must be done to effectively introduce significant changes. For anyone who is frustrated by the time it takes to get things done, and who is interesting in learning how to shorten the process, this is a MUST read.