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American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970
*PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST* A sweeping history of the inventors, inventions, and innovations that together created modern America. A stunning, wide-ranging history from one of the foremost historians of technology of our age American Genesis tells the sweeping story of the technological revolution that made modern America. Unlike other histories of technology, which focus on particular inventions like the light bulb or the automobile, American Genesis makes these inventions characters in a broad chronicle, both shaped by and shaping a culture. By weaving scientific and technological advancement into other cultural trends, and bringing in fascinating characters like Edison, Ford, and Frederick Taylor, Hughes demonstrates here the myriad ways in which the two are inexorably linked, and in a new preface, he recounts his earlier missteps in predicting the future of technology and follows its move into the information age.
Book Details
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press
- Publish Date: Jun 12nd, 2004
- Pages: 548
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - 0002
- Dimensions: 8.78in - 6.26in - 1.35in - 1.68lb
- EAN: 9780226359274
- Categories: • History• Inventions
About the Author
Hughes, Thomas P.: - Thomas P. Hughes (1923-2014) was the Mellon Professor Emeritus in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hughes received honorary doctorates from Northwestern University and the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, and was a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He was the author or editor of eleven books, including American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Praise for this book
Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize-- "Pulitzer Prize nomination"
"Hughes writes with sweep and detail. He links diverse phenomena like the military-industrial complex and modern art and architecture with his overall vision that order and control were the inevitable result of technological progress. His is an epic tale told with a rhythm and cadence that match it." --Lee Dembart "Los Angeles Times"
"Immensely valuable." --Jonathan Yardley "Washington Post"
"To be sure, readers who don't look for theoretical argument in history books won't regret its absence in American Genesis. They will enjoy, as I did, its informative accounts of major inventors and organizers--Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor as well as Edison, but most of all Elmer Sperry, the inventor not only of the gyroscope but also of many automatic control systems." --David Joravsky "New York Review of Books"
"Masterful and stimulating. . . . It is Hughes's mastery of the history of technology that distinguishes this book from previous efforts to depict history as technology . . . Many people have deplored the lack of a single volume giving a coherent, well-written account of what has been learned since 1970 about the role of technology in American history since 1870. Thomas Hughes has done something about it." --George Wise "Science"