Human-built world : how to think about technology and culture / Thomas P. Hughes.

Main entry:

Hughes, Thomas Parke.

Title & Author:

Human-built world : how to think about technology and culture / Thomas P. Hughes.

Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Description:

xii, 223 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Series:

Science.culture

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-203) and index.
Introduction : Complex technology -- Technology and the second creation -- Technology as machine -- Technology as systems, controls, and information -- Technology and culture -- Creating an ecotechnological environment.
Dust jacket.

Summary:

"In Human-Built World, Thomas Hughes chronicles the ideas about technology expressed by influential Western thinkers who not only understood its multifaceted character but who also explored its creative potential. Hughes draws on range of literature, art, and architecture to illuminate what technology has brought to society and culture, and to explain how we might begin to develop an "ecotechnology" that works with, not against, ecological systems. From the "Creator" model of development of the sixteenth century to the "big science" of the 1940s and 1950s to the architecture of Frank Gehry, Hughes charts the myriad ways that technology has been woven into the social and cultural fabric of different eras and the promises and problems it has offered. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, optimistically hoped that technology could be combined with nature to create an Edenic environment; Lewis Mumford, two centuries later, warned of the increasing mechanization of American life. Such divergent views, Hughes shows, have existed side by side, demonstrating the fundamental idea that "in its variety, technology is full of contradictions, laden with human folly, saved by occasional benign deeds, and rich with unintended consequences." In Human-Built World, he offers the history of these contradictions, follies, and consequences, a history that resurrects technology, rightfully, as more than gadgetry; it is in fact no less than an embodiment of human values."--Jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Table of contents

ISBN:

0226359336
9780226359335
9780226359342
0226359344

Subject:

Technology Social aspects United States.
Technology United States.
Technology Social aspects.
Technologie Aspect social.
Technologie États-Unis.
50.12 philosopy of technology.
Technology
Technologie
Gesellschaft
Techniek.
Culturele aspecten.
Sociale aspecten.
United States
USA

Added entries:

Science.culture.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 234156
Call No.: T14.5 .H84 2004
Status: Available

Actions:

Add to folder

Request these items

Email this list to yourself (or someone else)

Your folder is empty.

Please complete this form to make a request for consultation. A copy of this list will also be forwarded to you.

Your contact information

First name:

Last name:

Email:

Phone number:

Notes (optional):

We will contact you to set up an appointment. Please keep in mind that your consultation date will be based on the type of material you wish to study. To prepare your visit, we'll need:

— At least 2 weeks for primary sources (prints and drawings, photographs, archival documents, etc.)
— At least 48 hours for secondary sources (books, periodicals, vertical files, etc.)

Back to list

Submit