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A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium, by Robert Friedel
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Finalist, 2008 Henry Paolucci / Walter Bagehot Book Award given by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
Why does technology change over time, how does it change, and what difference does it make? In this sweeping, ambitious look at a thousand years of Western experience, Robert Friedel argues that technological change comes largely through the pursuit of improvement—the deep-rooted belief that things could be done in a better way. What Friedel calls the "culture of improvement" is manifested every day in the ways people carry out their tasks in life—from tilling fields and raising children to waging war.
Improvements can be ephemeral or lasting, and one person’s improvement may not always be viewed as such by others. Friedel stresses the social processes by which we define what improvements are and decide which improvements will last and which will not. These processes, he emphasizes, have created both winners and losers in history.
Friedel presents a series of narratives of Western technology that begin in the eleventh century and stretch into the twenty-first. Familiar figures from the history of invention are joined by others—the Italian preacher who described the first eyeglasses, the dairywomen displaced from their control over cheesemaking, and the little-known engineer who first suggested a grand tower to Gustav Eiffel. Friedel traces technology from the plow and the printing press to the internal combustion engine, the transistor, and the space shuttle. Friedel also reminds us that faith in improvement can sometimes have horrific consequences: improved weaponry makes warfare ever more deadly and the drive for improving human beings can lead to eugenics and even genocide. The most comprehensive attempt to tell the story of Western technology in many years, engagingly written and lavishly illustrated, A Culture of Improvement documents the ways in which the drive for improvement has shaped our modern world.
- Sales Rank: #1339725 in Books
- Published on: 2007-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.25" w x 8.00" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 600 pages
Review
"...[T]his book is also a rare, detailed, nontheoretical survey that exposes the veins of invention that run through Western culture, creating an astonishing picture of achievement through its careful accumulation of small details. Mr. Friedel surveys the kinds of inventions and technologies that developed in the West over centuries, compiling a roster of innovation that encompasses everything from textiles to time telling. Under his firm touch it begins to be possible to feel something like the primal pulse of this culture."
— Edward Rothstein, The New York Times
"[Robert Friedel] can not only impart the lesser-known details of a familiar story but masterfully show how strange and wonderful it is that things happened the way they did."
— Wall Street Journal
"By virtue of its range, quality, length (nearly 600 pages) and comprehensiveness, Robert Friedel's book will go to the top of the list as the standard text for an introductory Charlemagne-to-George-Bush course on the history of technology."
— Times Higher Education Supplement
"From steam engines to calico printing, from cheesemaking to supersonic flight, this is the one place to go if you are fascinated by technology and want to know how it has shaped the modern world. In The Culture of Improvement, Robert Friedel has elegantly synthesized decades of scholarly research in the history of technology into a lively and insightful account of modernity."
—Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Janice and Julian Bers Professor of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, author of The Social History of American Technology
"This is a splendid book, recalling Mumford's Technics and Civilization in its scope and erudition. It challenges us to think carefully about the idea of progress, the 'culture of improvement,' and the uneasy relationship that persists between freedom, power, and social responsibility in the modern technological world."
—Merritt Roe Smith, Cutten Professor of the History of Technology, MIT
About the Author
Robert Friedel is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Pioneer Plastic: The Making and Selling of Celluloid, Edison's Electric Light, and Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty.
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
The better mousetrap
By Shalom Freedman
" Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a pathway to your door" Emerson wrote. The distinguished historian of American Civilization Daniel Boorstin believed that the heart of the American uniqueness was precisely in those improvements in material life, those accumulated advantages in creature comforts. Now Robert Friedel has come to lavishly illustrate for us the idea that the ' culture of improvement' is what Western civilization through its technology has been over the past millenium.
Friedel traces innovation by innovation the historical development of a whole host of technologies. From cheese -making to supersonic aircraft we learn how certain technologies 'take off' and others lose their way in the shuffle of social events. We see too how time and again key individuals have been responsible for breakthrough developments which move mankind forward.
Friedel is well aware that the development of Western technology is not a one- sided altogether positive story. The weapons of mass - destruction that threaten mankind, and a wide range of threats to the earth itself come in part as result of technological developments.
Still overall there is the sense that human life and society have tremendously benefited by the creative innovative powers of Western technological culture.
This is a very rich work from which a tremendous amount can be learned not only about the development of specific innovations- but about the overall progress of society through them.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
The March to the Future
By Mike3746
Several years ago, the education channel in our town had a show called "Connections" in which the story was told of how common things of the modern world came to be through the most fantastic journey of inventions. This book encompasses just about everything we have today and tells how it all came to be. But, the author goes to the extreme of telling not just aobut the inventors, the tinkerers and the capitalists who profited from them, it tells the intriguing human side of technology and how it impacted the lives of the people who benefited and also suffered because of them. It is a remarkably detailed adventure through the history of how modern people came to be. I found it to be a book I could hardly put down and once I did, I was eager to get back to it. It takes the reader from the first black smiths to the super sonic transport, from the invention of thread and yarn making to the launching of satellites. It is the remarkable story of western civilizations, north of the Mediterranean, west of the Volga, and how they advanced steadily, relentlessly and with ever quickening pace to make the world we know. Do not expect gratuitous recognitions to other cultures or apologies to nature or to overtaken primitive societies. This is a factual, no-holds-barred history of industry and how the European men and women made things that made things happen. It explores ruthlessly the insanely driven mechanics, the dusty masons, the sooty handed artisans who were there at the first laying of the foundation corner stone of western civilization. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to find out just how it is we arrived here and now.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Culture of Excitement
By Richard Pilbrow
This book is such a treasure trove . . . A thrilling read of constant discovery.
We live in a complicated world and this amazing piece of scholarship reveals how it came about. Everything we take for granted. How it happened. From the plough to the microchip, I was constantly surprised and excited to discover how things really came to pass. The story of so many individuals' struggles to improve and innovate is inspiring.
This is a big book. When I began I had no idea of what riches it would be reveal. (the eBook version is easier to handle) but every pages offers new insights. A great and absorbing read.
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