Technology

Summary

Introductions to the subject

Global shift: reshaping the global economic map in the 21st century

P. Dicken Sage Publications, 2003, 632pp. £60.00. ISBN 0761971491.

Exceptionally good, very well presented and readable introduction. ‘My basic argument is that globalization is not some inevitable kind of end-state but, rather, a complex, indeterminate set of processes operating very unevenly in both time and space … It is vital to understand the longterm, underlying processes of global economic change.’

18 chapters in four parts: The shifting contours of the geo-economy; Processes of global shift (including Technology: the ‘great growling engine of change’); Global shift: the picture in different sectors; Winners and losers in the global economy. ‘It is utterly repellent that so many people live in such abject poverty and deprivation whilst, at the same time, others live in immense luxury. This is not an argument for levelling down but for raising up. The means for doing this are there. What matters is the will to do it …’ ‘If there was a word beyond definitive, then that would be the word I would be using here.’ (Nigel Thrift, University of Bristol)

A history of engineering and technology: artful methods

E. Garrison 2nd edn, CRC Press, 1998, 347pp. $79.95. ISBN 084939810X.

From the earliest builders through antiquity, renaissance, industrial revolution, 20th century, to new technology and the future.

History of technology

I. Inkster, ed. Continuum, 2004, 256pp. £75.00. ISBN 0826471870. ‘The technical problems confronting different societies and periods and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. It deals with the history of technical discovery and change and explores the relationship of technology to other aspects of life – social, cultural and economic – showing how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.’

Series: History of Technology, V. 25.

■ History of technology and science S. Collins; Carnegie Mellon University . www.library.cmu.edu/Research/Humanities/History/hots.html. Very good example of briefly annotated resource list created by a university reference librarian (and updated January 2005). Well worth checking university library websites for such lists (though their quality and longevity varies considerably).