| Visions of Technology: A Century of Vital Debate about Machines Systems and the Human World Contributor(s): Rhodes, Richard (Author) |
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ISBN: 0684863111 ISBN-13: 9780684863115 Publisher: Simon & Schuster OUR PRICE: $23.74 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2000 Annotation: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" presents a compelling overview of the effects of technology on modern life in a one-of-a-kind collection. Illustrations throughout. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | Social Aspects - Science | History - Science | Philosophy & Social Aspects |
| Dewey: 609.04 |
| LCCN: 9837209 |
| Series: Machines, Systems and the Human World |
| Physical Information: 1.04" H x 5.49" W x 8.55" (1.11 lbs) 400 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Technology was the blessing and the bane of the twentieth century. Human life span nearly doubled in the West, but in no century were more human beings killed by new technologies of war. Improvements in agriculture now feed increasing billions, but pesticides and chemicals threaten to poison the earth. Does technology improve us or diminish us? Enslave us or make us free? With this first-ever collection of the essential twentieth-century writings on technology, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes explores the optimism, ambivalence, and wrongheaded judgments with which Americans have faced an ever-shifting world. Visions of Technology collects writings on events from the Great Exposition of 1900 and the invention of the telegraph to the advent of genetic counseling and the defeat of Garry Kasparov by IBM's chess-playing computer, Deep Blue. Its gems of opinion and history include Henry Ford on the horseless carriage, Robert Caro on the transformation of New York City, J. Robert Oppenheimer on science and war, Loretta Lynn on the Pill and much more. Together, they chronicle an unprecedented century of change. |
Contributor Bio(s): Rhodes, Richard: - Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He graduated from Yale University and has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Appearing as host and correspondent for documentaries on public television's Frontline and American Experience series, he has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard and MIT and is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Visit his website: RichardRhodes.com |