When Technology Wounds: The Human Consequences of Progress [Hardcover]

Chellis Glendinning (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an alarming and persuasive expose, psychologist Glendinning ( Wake Up in the Nuclear Age ) relates the stories of 46 American "technology survivors" who suffered illnesses allegedly induced by the products of sophisticated science, from the low-calorie, artificial sweetener aspartame (which reportedly caused dizziness, nausea and mental anxiety in a dieting woman in New Mexico) to weed killer (said to have induced migraine headaches, vertigo and gastrointestinal disorders in a California couple, as well as birth defects in their child). The author is herself a victim: she developed infections, allergies and "paralyzing depression" as a result of taking birth-control pills, and pelvic inflammation after the implantation of an intrauterine device. Glendinning also maintains that nuclear fallout, toxic substances and asbestos have claimed untold lives. She concentrates on the psychic trauma afflicting sufferers, which arises, she contends, from the patient's sense of helplessness and loss of trust. Perhaps quixotically, Glendinning urges forming an international union of survivors to alert the public to the risks of technological "miracles." Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

We have a survival-of-the-fittest disregard for those people who are most vulnerable in a technological age, says Glendinning, and we must be catalyzed into caring action. Glendinning, author of Waking Up in the Nuclear Age (LJ 5/18/87), sets up a clear definition in a social and political context of what technology is (everything from intrauterine devices to atomic bombs) and carefully documents the stories of those who have suffered from it. These "survivors" have experienced denial, rage, fear, "unrelenting ambiguity," sorrow, loss of a sense of meaning in life, and suffering that "cracks the boundaries of what you thought that you could bear . . . ." At times, this book is too personal (Glendinning herself has suffered illness from using contraceptive devices), but overall it is effective in questioning modern "progress."-- Diane M. Brown, Univ. of California Lib., Berkeley
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (March 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688072828
• ISBN-13: 978-0688072827
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,218,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Also relevant to neurodiverse peoples-the latest wave of technology surviviors!!! February 29, 2012

By Daniel A. Salomon

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am indebted to ecopsychologist Chellis Glendinning for all the healing her books, My Name Is Chellis & I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1994) and When Technology Wounds: the Human Consequences of Progress (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1990) gave me.

Where the former, helped me identify that one of the "root causes" of much of my unhappiness, my resistance to medical treatments, my emotional eating, and stagnation in my personal growth, was because I was living in a "concrete jungle" cut off from the Natural World, which "sustains and governs me."

This helped prompt my push to transfer my Section 8 voucher to a place closer in Nature. While, the later, once I moved to a new home, Closer-to-Nature, helped outline a reasonable treatment framework, for me, which actually works, to help me further recover and heal.

I also am very indebted to Glendinning for acknowledging neurodiverse peoples as Nature-based peoples, linking disability history to environmental history.