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Engineering the Eternal City: Infrastructure, Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome
by Pamela O. LongBetween the catastrophic flood of the Tiber River in 1557 and the death of the “engineering pope” Sixtus V in 1590, the city of Rome was transformed by intense activity involving building construction and engineering projects of all kinds. Using hundreds of archival documents and primary sources, Engineering the Eternal City explores the processes and people involved in these infrastructure projects—sewers, bridge repair, flood prevention, aqueduct construction, the building of new, straight streets, and even the relocation of immensely heavy ancient Egyptian obelisks that Roman emperors had carried to the city centuries before. This portrait of an early modern Rome examines the many conflicts, failures, and successes that shaped the city, as decision-makers tried to control not only Rome’s structures and infrastructures but also the people who lived there. Taking up visual images of the city created during the same period—most importantly in maps and urban representations, this book shows how in a time before the development of modern professionalism and modern bureaucracies, there was far more wide-ranging conversation among people of various backgrounds on issues of engineering and infrastructure than there is in our own times. Physicians, civic leaders, jurists, cardinals, popes, and clerics engaged with painters, sculptors, architects, printers, and other practitioners as they discussed, argued, and completed the projects that remade Rome.
Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815
by Ken AlderEngineering the Revolution documents the forging of a new relationship between technology and politics in Revolutionary France, and the inauguration of a distinctively modern form of the “technological life. ” Here, Ken Alder rewrites the history of the eighteenth century as the total history of one particular artifact—the gun—by offering a novel and historical account of how material artifacts emerge as the outcome of political struggle. By expanding the “political” to include conflict over material objects, this volume rethinks the nature of engineering rationality, the origins of mass production, the rise of meritocracy, and our interpretation of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
Engineering the State: The Huai River and Reconstruction in Nationalist China, 1927–37 (East Asia: History, Politics, Sociology and Culture)
by David PietzFirst published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Engineering Victory: How Technology Won the Civil War (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)
by Thomas F. Army Jr.Superior engineering skills among Union soldiers helped ensure victory in the Civil War.Engineering Victory brings a fresh approach to the question of why the North prevailed in the Civil War. Historian Thomas F. Army, Jr., identifies strength in engineering—not superior military strategy or industrial advantage—as the critical determining factor in the war’s outcome.Army finds that Union soldiers were able to apply scientific ingenuity and innovation to complex problems in a way that Confederate soldiers simply could not match. Skilled Free State engineers who were trained during the antebellum period benefited from basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices, and a culture that encouraged learning and innovation. During the war, their rapid construction and repair of roads, railways, and bridges allowed Northern troops to pass quickly through the forbidding terrain of the South as retreating and maneuvering Confederates struggled to cut supply lines and stop the Yankees from pressing any advantage.By presenting detailed case studies from both theaters of the war, Army clearly demonstrates how the soldiers’ education, training, and talents spelled the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat. He also reveals massive logistical operations as critical in determining the war’s outcome.
Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation
by Sarah E. VaughnIn Engineering Vulnerability Sarah E. Vaughn examines climate adaptation against the backdrop of ongoing processes of settler colonialism and the global climate change initiatives that seek to intervene in the lives of the world’s most vulnerable. Her case study is Guyana in the aftermath of the 2005 catastrophic flooding that ravaged the country’s Atlantic coastal plain. The country’s ensuing engineering projects reveal the contingencies of climate adaptation and the capacity of flooding to shape Guyanese expectations about racial (in)equality. Analyzing the coproduction of race and vulnerability, Vaughn details why climate adaptation has implications for how we understand the past and the continued human settlement of a place. Such understandings become particularly apparent not only through experts’ and ordinary citizens’ disputes over resources but in their attention to the ethical practice of technoscience over time. Approaching climate adaptation this way, Vaughn exposes the generative openings as well as gaps in racial thinking for theorizing climate action, environmental justice, and, more broadly, future life on a warming planet.Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient
Engineering War and Peace in Modern Japan, 1868–1964 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)
by Takashi NishiyamaThe role of engineering communities in taking Japan from a defeated war machine into a peacetime technology leader.Naval, aeronautic, and mechanical engineers played a powerful part in the military buildup of Japan in the early and mid-twentieth century. They belonged to a militaristic regime and embraced the importance of their role in it. Takashi Nishiyama examines the impact of war and peace on technological transformation during the twentieth century. He is the first to study the paradoxical and transformative power of Japan’s defeat in World War II through the lens of engineering.Nishiyama asks: How did authorities select and prepare young men to be engineers? How did Japan develop curricula adequate to the task (and from whom did the country borrow)? Under what conditions? What did the engineers think of the planes they built to support Kamikaze suicide missions? But his study ultimately concerns the remarkable transition these trained engineers made after total defeat in 1945. How could the engineers of war machines so quickly turn to peaceful construction projects such as designing the equipment necessary to manufacture consumer products? Most important, they developed new high-speed rail services, including the Shinkansen Bullet Train. What does this change tell us not only about Japan at war and then in peacetime but also about the malleability of engineering cultures?Nishiyama aims to counterbalance prevalent Eurocentric/Americentric views in the history of technology. Engineering War and Peace in Modern Japan, 1868–1964 sets the historical experience of one country’s technological transformation in a larger international framework by studying sources in six different languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. The result is a fascinating read for those interested in technology, East Asia, and international studies. Nishiyama's work offers lessons to policymakers interested in how a country can recover successfully after defeat.
Engineering—An Endless Frontier
by Sunny Y. AUYANGGenetic engineering, nanotechnology, astrophysics, particle physics: We live in an engineered world, one where the distinctions between science and engineering, technology and research, are fast disappearing. This book shows how, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the goals of natural scientists--to discover what was not known--and that of engineers--to create what did not exist--are undergoing an unprecedented convergence. Sunny Y. Auyang ranges widely in demonstrating that engineering today is not only a collaborator with science but its equal. In concise accounts of the emergence of industrial laboratories and chemical and electrical engineering, and in whirlwind histories of the machine tools and automobile industries and the rise of nuclear energy and information technology, her book presents a broad picture of modern engineering: its history, structure, technological achievements, and social responsibilities; its relation to natural science, business administration, and public policies. Auyang uses case studies such as the development of the F-117A Nighthawk and Boeing 777 aircraft, as well as the experiences of engineer-scientists such as Oliver Heaviside, engineer-entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford and Bill Gates, and engineer-managers such as Alfred Sloan and Jack Welch to give readers a clear sense of engineering's essential role in the future of scientific research. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Introduction 2 . Technology Takes Off 2.1 From Practical Art to Technology 2.2 Construction Becomes Mathematical 2.3 Experimenting with Machines 2.4 Science and Chemical Industries 2.5 Power and Communication 3. Engineering for Information 3.1 From Microelectronics to Nanotechnology 3.2 Computer Hardware and Software 3.3 Wireless, Satellites, and the Internet 4. Engineering in Society 4.1 Social Ascent and Images of Engineers 4.2 Partnership in Research and Development 4.3 Contributions to Sectors of the Economy 5. Innovation by Design 5.1 Inventive Thinking in Negative Feedback 5.2 Design Processes in Systems Engineering 5.3 “Working Together� in Aircraft Development 5.4 From Onboard Computers to Door Hinges 6. Sciences of Useful Systems 6.1 Mathematics in Engineering and Science 6.2 Information and Control Theories 6.3 Wind Tunnels and Internet Simulation 6.4 Integrative Materials Engineering 6.5 Biological Engineering Frontiers 7. Leaders Who Are Engineers 7.1 Business Leaders in the Car Industry 7.2 Public Policies and Nuclear Power 7.3 Managing Technological Risks Appendix A. Statistical Profiles of Engineers Appendix B. U.S. Research and Development Notes Index I am impressed by the scope of Engineering - An Endless Frontier, and fascinated by Sunny Auyang's comprehensive knowledge of the subject. This is just the kind of book the National Academy of Engineering has been encouraging to promote the importance of engineering to the public. It will have a long shelf-life in that it pulls together material that is not readily accessible, and will serve as a reference for anyone interested in engineering as a profession. Engineering needs this book!--John Hutchinson, Harvard UniversityEngineering - An Endless Frontier is extraordinary in scope. Sunny Auyang describes the different kinds of contemporary engineering practices and productions, attempts to provide historical background, explains the scientific basis for engineering innovation in different fields, and addresses the broad, systems level managerial, entrepreneurial, and design activities of professionals. It's rare to find a single author who can grasp and explain the essential features of modern technologies across such an array of industrial sectors and engineering disciplines and explain how they work, why they work they way they do,
Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime (Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology)
by Lino CamprubiHow engineers and agricultural scientists became key actors in Franco's regime and Spain's forced modernization.In this book, Lino Camprubí argues that science and technology were at the very center of the building of Franco's Spain. Previous histories of early Francoist science and technology have described scientists and engineers as working “under” Francoism, subject to censorship and bound by politically mandated research agendas. Camprubí offers a different perspective, considering instead scientists' and engineers' active roles in producing those political mandates. Many scientists and engineers had been exiled, imprisoned, or executed by the regime. Camprubí argues that those who remained made concrete the mission of “redemption” that Franco had invented for himself. This gave them the opportunity to become key actors—and mid-level decision makers—within the regime.Camprubí describes a series of projects across Spain undertaken by the civil engineers and agricultural scientists who placed themselves at the center of their country's forced modernization. These include a coal silo, built in 1953, viewed as an embodiment of Spain's industrialized landscape; links between laboratories, architects, and the national Catholic church (and between technology and authoritarian control); vertically organized rice production and research on genetics; river management and the contested meanings of self-sufficiency; and the circulation of construction standards by mobile laboratories as an engine for European integration. Separately, each chapter offers a fascinating microhistory that illustrates the coevolution of Francoist science, technology, and politics. Taken together, they reveal networks of people, institutions, knowledge, artifacts, and technological systems woven together to form a new state.
Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime
by Lino CamprubíIn this book, Lino Camprubí argues that science and technology were at the very center of the building of Franco's Spain. Previous histories of early Francoist science and technology have described scientists and engineers as working "under" Francoism, subject to censorship and bound by politically mandated research agendas. Camprubí offers a different perspective, considering instead scientists' and engineers' active roles in producing those political mandates. Many scientists and engineers had been exiled, imprisoned, or executed by the regime. Camprubí argues that those who remained made concrete the mission of "redemption" that Franco had invented for himself. This gave them the opportunity to become key actors -- and mid-level decision makers -- within the regime. Camprubí describes a series of projects across Spain undertaken by the civil engineers and agricultural scientists who placed themselves at the center of their country's forced modernization. These include a coal silo, built in 1953, viewed as an embodiment of Spain's industrialized landscape; links between laboratories, architects, and the national Catholic church (and between technology and authoritarian control); vertically organized rice production and research on genetics; river management and the contested meanings of self-sufficiency; and the circulation of construction standards by mobile laboratories as an engine for European integration. Separately, each chapter offers a fascinating microhistory that illustrates the coevolution of Francoist science, technology, and politics. Taken together, they reveal networks of people, institutions, knowledge, artifacts, and technological systems woven together to form a new state.
Engineers for Change: Competing Visions of Technology in 1960s America
by Matthew WisnioskiIn the late 1960s an eclectic group of engineers joined the antiwar and civil rights activists of the time in agitating for change. The engineers were fighting to remake their profession, challenging their fellow engineers to embrace a more humane vision of technology. In Engineers for Change, Matthew Wisnioski offers an account of this conflict within engineering, linking it to deep-seated assumptions about technology and American life. The postwar period in America saw a near-utopian belief in technology's beneficence. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, society--influenced by the antitechnology writings of such thinkers as Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford--began to view technology in a more negative light. Engineers themselves were seen as conformist organization men propping up the military-industrial complex. A dissident minority of engineers offered critiques of their profession that appropriated concepts from technology's critics. These dissidents were criticized in turn by conservatives who regarded them as countercultural Luddites. And yet, as Wisnioski shows, the radical minority spurred the professional elite to promote a new understanding of technology as a rapidly accelerating force that our institutions are ill-equipped to handle. The negative consequences of technology spring from its very nature--and not from engineering's failures. "Sociotechnologists" were recruited to help society adjust to its technology. Wisnioski argues that in responding to the challenges posed by critics within their profession, engineers in the 1960s helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history.
Engineers for Change: Competing Visions of Technology in 1960s America (Engineering Studies)
by Matthew WisnioskiAn account of conflicts within engineering in the 1960s that helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history.In the late 1960s an eclectic group of engineers joined the antiwar and civil rights activists of the time in agitating for change. The engineers were fighting to remake their profession, challenging their fellow engineers to embrace a more humane vision of technology. In Engineers for Change, Matthew Wisnioski offers an account of this conflict within engineering, linking it to deep-seated assumptions about technology and American life. The postwar period in America saw a near-utopian belief in technology's beneficence. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, society—influenced by the antitechnology writings of such thinkers as Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford—began to view technology in a more negative light. Engineers themselves were seen as conformist organization men propping up the military-industrial complex. A dissident minority of engineers offered critiques of their profession that appropriated concepts from technology's critics. These dissidents were criticized in turn by conservatives who regarded them as countercultural Luddites. And yet, as Wisnioski shows, the radical minority spurred the professional elite to promote a new understanding of technology as a rapidly accelerating force that our institutions are ill-equipped to handle. The negative consequences of technology spring from its very nature—and not from engineering's failures. “Sociotechnologists” were recruited to help society adjust to its technology. Wisnioski argues that in responding to the challenges posed by critics within their profession, engineers in the 1960s helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history.
Engineers in Battle
by Paul Williams Thompson E. ReyboldMODERN war, in placing a premium on mobility, has placed a premium on the Engineer. For it is the task of the Engineer to keep the routes of advance clear of obstacles which might impede the progress of the modern engines of war. This purely offensive role of the Engineer is in addition to all his conventional duties such as effecting demolitions and maintaining routes of communication.But, even in his conventional dudes, the Engineer now proceeds with new equipment, new techniques, and new doctrines. It is literally true that one who knows only the Engineer unit of World War I would scarcely recognize the corresponding unit today.As America learns to know its new Army better and better, these facts will become self-evident. Meanwhile, for living examples of the modern conception of the Engineer in battle, one can do no better than go to the records of the actual engagements in Europe.Colonel Thompson’s book takes us to the European battlefields, and throws the spotlight on the actions of combat Engineers:…including Warsaw, Bzura, the Upper Rhine, the Maginot Line and others. He also looks at mine-laying operations and pontooneering on the Loire and Seine.
Engineers in Western Europe: A Profession Torn Between Technology and Economy, 1850–1990, with Outlooks to the Present
by Rolf TorstendahlIn his book, pending between history and sociology, on engineers in thirteen countries of the western part of Europe, Professor Rolf Torstendahl approaches the development from around 1850 up to the present situation from different angles. - One examines the educational patterns and the author shows how widely different types of formation of engineers existed in Britain, France and Germany in the early period. They were paradigmatic for other countries. Differences remain but patterns have gradually become similar. - From another angle the author makes professional organisations of engineers a main object of study, and they vary from alumni associations to powerful lobby organisations. - A third approach in the book is to examine engineers versus sociological theories of professionalism on the one hand and theories of managerialism on the other. In the last chapter the author also discusses topics like technocracy and the responsibility of engineers.
Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony
by Rudolf MrazekBased on close reading of historical documents--poetry as much as statistics--and focused on the conceptualization of technology, this book is an unconventional evocation of late colonial Netherlands East Indies (today Indonesia). In considering technology and the ways that people use and think about things, Rudolf Mrázek invents an original way to talk about freedom, colonialism, nationalism, literature, revolution, and human nature.
Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds
by Simon IngsFour writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition. ENGINEERS OF HUMAN SOULS is an intimate and shocking shadow history of creative vanity in a time that turned writers - once the faithful servants of authority - into figures of political consequence.Maurice Barrès, who first wielded the politics of identity. Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin's cheerleader. The Maoist Ding Ling, whose stories exculpated the regime that kept her imprisoned.All four nursed extravagant visions of the future, and believed they were vital to its realisation. Each was lured to the centre of political action. Each established a dangerous and damaging relationship with a notorious dictator. And when writers and rulers find a use for each other, the consequences can be shattering for us all. These stories - of courage and compromise, vanity and malevolence - speak urgently to the uncontrollable power of words.
Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds
by Simon IngsFour writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition. ENGINEERS OF HUMAN SOULS is an intimate and shocking shadow history of creative vanity in a time that turned writers - once the faithful servants of authority - into figures of political consequence.Maurice Barrès, who first wielded the politics of identity. Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin's cheerleader. The Maoist Ding Ling, whose stories exculpated the regime that kept her imprisoned.All four nursed extravagant visions of the future, and believed they were vital to its realisation. Each was lured to the centre of political action. Each established a dangerous and damaging relationship with a notorious dictator. And when writers and rulers find a use for each other, the consequences can be shattering for us all. These stories - of courage and compromise, vanity and malevolence - speak urgently to the uncontrollable power of words.
Engineers of the Soul: The Grandiose Propaganda of Stalin's Russia
by Frank WestermanA brilliant fusion of travel writing and Soviet history which reads like Bruce Chatwin. Engineers of the Soul is the riveting story of two journeys -- one literal, one imaginary -- through contemporary Russia and through Soviet-era literature. Travelling through present and past, Frank Westerman draws the reader into the wild euphoria of the Russian Revolution, as art and reality are bent to radically new purposes. Writers of renown, described by Stalin as 'engineers of the soul', were encouraged to sing the praises of canal and dam construction under titles such as Energy, The Hydraulic Power Station and Onward, Time! But their enthusiasm -- spontaneous and idealistic at first -- soon becomes an obligatory song of praise. And as these colossal waterworks lead to slavery and destruction, Soviet writers labour on in the service of a deluded totalitarian society. Combining investigative journalism with literary history, Westerman examines both the landscape of 'Oriental despotism' and the books -- and lives -- of writers caught in the wheels of the system. 'It is easy to die a hero's death,' wrote Konstantin Paustovsky, 'but it is difficult to live a hero's life. ' Engineers of the Soul sweeps the reader along to the dramatic dénouement: the final confrontation between writers and engineers that signalled the end of the Soviet empire.
Engineers of Victory
by Paul KennedyPaul Kennedy, award-winning author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers and one of today's most renowned historians, now provides a new and unique look at how World War II was won. Engineers of Victory is a fascinating nuts-and-bolts account of the strategic factors that led to Allied victory. Kennedy reveals how the leaders' grand strategy was carried out by the ordinary soldiers, scientists, engineers, and businessmen responsible for realizing their commanders' visions of success.In January 1943, FDR and Churchill convened in Casablanca and established the Allied objectives for the war: to defeat the Nazi blitzkrieg; to control the Atlantic sea lanes and the air over western and central Europe; to take the fight to the European mainland; and to end Japan's imperialism. Astonishingly, a little over a year later, these ambitious goals had nearly all been accomplished. With riveting, tactical detail, Engineers of Victory reveals how.Kennedy recounts the inside stories of the invention of the cavity magnetron, a miniature radar "as small as a soup plate," and the Hedgehog, a multi-headed grenade launcher that allowed the Allies to overcome the threat to their convoys crossing the Atlantic; the critical decision by engineers to install a super-charged Rolls-Royce engine in the P-51 Mustang, creating a fighter plane more powerful than the Luftwaffe's; and the innovative use of pontoon bridges (made from rafts strung together) to help Russian troops cross rivers and elude the Nazi blitzkrieg. He takes readers behind the scenes, unveiling exactly how thousands of individual Allied planes and fighting ships were choreographed to collectively pull off the invasion of Normandy, and illuminating how crew chiefs perfected the high-flying and inaccessible B-29 Superfortress that would drop the atomic bombs on Japan.The story of World War II is often told as a grand narrative, as if it were fought by supermen or decided by fate. Here Kennedy uncovers the real heroes of the war, highlighting for the first time the creative strategies, tactics, and organizational decisions that made the lofty Allied objectives into a successful reality. In an even more significant way, Engineers of Victory has another claim to our attention, for it restores "the middle level of war" to its rightful place in history.Advance praise for Engineers of Victory "Paul Kennedy's history of World War II is a demonstration not only of incisive analysis and mastery of subject, but of profound integrity, and a historian's desire to celebrate not great leaders but the forgotten scientists, technicians, and logisticians who gave us the tactical edge, without which the strategic designs could never have been achieved."--Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography "Kennedy's fine-grained analysis and suspicion of any one single cause--like cipher cracking, intelligence and deception operations, or specific weapons systems, like the Soviet T-34 tank--permit him to persuasively array his supporting facts. . . . An absorbing new approach to a well-worked field."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "A fresh and stimulating approach."--Publishers WeeklyFrom the Hardcover edition.
The Engineer's Wife: A Novel
by Tracey Enerson WoodTHE USA TODAY BESTSELLER!THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!She built the Brooklyn Bridge, so why don't you know her name?Emily Roebling built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow. Discover the fascinating woman who helped design and construct the Brooklyn Bridge. Perfect for book clubs and fans of Marie Benedict.Emily refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and what she wants, and she's determined to make change. But then her husband asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible.Emily's fight for women's suffrage is put on hold, and her life transformed when her husband Washington Roebling, the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. But as the project takes shape under Emily's direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building—hers, or her husband's. As the monument rises, Emily's marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridge finally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it?Based on the true story of an American icon, The Engineer's Wife delivers an emotional portrait of a woman transformed by a project of unfathomable scale, which takes her into the bowels of the East River, suffragette riots, the halls of Manhattan's elite, and the heady, freewheeling temptations of P.T. Barnum. The biography of a husband and wife determined to build something that lasts—even at the risk of losing each other."Historical fiction at its finest."—Andrea Bobotis, author of The Last List of Miss Judith KrattOther Bestselling Historical Fiction from Sourcebooks Landmark:The Only Woman in the Room by Marie BenedictThe Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie BenedictThe Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele RichardsonSold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris
Engines: The Inner Workings of Machines That Move the World
by Theodore GrayThe international bestselling author of How Things Work and The Elements Trilogy turns his focus to a visual exploration of the inner workings and functionality of the marvelous machines that run our world—from the first steam engines to giant turbines to today's tiny electrical engines. In Engines, the always entertaining and informative Theodore Gray explores the glorious guts and intricate innards of dozens of impressive machines. Through his engaging and unexpected stories and Nick Mann&’s trademark gorgeous photography, Gray takes us on a journey from ancient Greek steam engines to our most sophisticated twenty-first-century machinery. We take time to appreciate the detailed functionality of the internal combustion engine, the connection between magnetism and electric motors, as well as hydraulics, robotics, and more. Each chapter builds on the previous, illuminating the evolution of engines and revealing the ingenuity brought to bear as humans invented and perfected these marvelous mechanical systems. Along the way, Gray regales us with tales of his own experiences working with and collecting these machines. For fans of how things are made and how they work, Engines is a loving tribute to the mechanical world.
Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution 1790-1860
by Brooke Hindle Steven LubarTHE MATERIAL ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LIFE UNDERWENT GREAT CHANGE in the period from 1790 to 1860, a pattern of development often referred to as the American Industrial Revolution. At the center of this transformation was a series of technological developments that were directly associated with labor, management, and organizational change. This book's discussion begins with physical survivals of technologies of that era, most of them preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. The book, like the exhibition from which it is derived (also entitled Engines of Change), endeavors to look through these artifacts to gain an understanding of the Industrial Revolution that differs significantly from popular perceptions. Specific insights can be gained from three dimensional survivals and from two dimensional views that are neither available in written accounts nor communicable through words alone. The photographs, drawings, and maps included here are, consequently, more than mere illustrations, more than a pleasant way to underline the written text. Indeed, in some ways they constitute the book's primary message. At the same time, the most obvious message conveyed by artifacts and pictures is limited by its unavoidable specificity. It must always be placed in a larger and broader context. Occasionally, observers bring enough context with them to interpret the artifacts they see, but usually extended verbal explanation is required to make objects and pictures truly meaningful. That is the purpose of the text of this book- to provide the context, to look through the physical survivals to an enriched comprehension of the technology and related aspects of the American Industrial Revolution.
Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars
by Paul IngrassiaA narrative like no other: a cultural history that explores how cars have both propelled and reflected the American experience-- from the Model T to the Prius. From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66, from the lore of Jack Kerouac to the sex appeal of the Hot Rod, America's history is a vehicular history--an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Ingrassia. Ingrassia offers a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the Corvette, the Beetle, and the Chevy Corvair, as well as the personalities and tales behind them: Robert McNamara's unlikely role in Lee Iacocca's Mustang, John Z. DeLorean's Pontiac GTO , Henry Ford's Model T, as well as Honda's Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. Through these cars and these characters, Ingrassia shows how the car has expressed the particularly American tension between the lure of freedom and the obligations of utility. He also takes us through the rise of American manufacturing, the suburbanization of the country, the birth of the hippie and the yuppie, the emancipation of women, and many more fateful episodes and eras, including the car's unintended consequences: trial lawyers, energy crises, and urban sprawl. Narrative history of the highest caliber, Engines of Change is an entirely edifying new way to look at the American story.
Engines Of Democracy: Politics And Policymaking In State Legislatures
by Alan RosenthalState legislators have often been in the shadow of their national counterparts, but they drive the processes of democracy. Rosenthal brings together a lifetime of research and experience on state legislative politics into one eminently readable volume, Building on earlier work with new data and recent interviews and observations, Both a complement and contrast to the policymaking process on Capitol Hill, Engines of Democracy proves that no one gives insight into state legislators and their work the way Alan Rosenthal can.
Engines of Empire: Steamships and the Victorian Imagination
by Douglas BurgessIn 1859, the S.S. Great Eastern departed from England on her maiden voyage. She was a remarkable wonder of the nineteenth century: an iron city longer than Trafalgar Square, taller than Big Ben's tower, heavier than Westminster Cathedral. Her paddles were the size of Ferris wheels; her decks could hold four thousand passengers bound for America, or ten thousand troops bound for the Raj. Yet she ended her days as a floating carnival before being unceremoniously dismantled in 1889. Steamships like the Great Eastern occupied a singular place in the Victorian mind. Crossing oceans, ferrying tourists and troops alike, they became emblems of nationalism, modernity, and humankind's triumph over the cruel elements. Throughout the nineteenth century, the spectacle of a ship's launch was one of the most recognizable symbols of British social and technological progress. Yet this celebration of the power of the empire masked overconfidence and an almost religious veneration of technology. Equating steam with civilization had catastrophic consequences for subjugated peoples around the world. Engines of Empire tells the story of the complex relationship between Victorians and their wondrous steamships, following famous travelers like Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Jules Verne as well as ordinary spectators, tourists, and imperial administrators as they cross oceans bound for the colonies. Rich with anecdotes and wry humor, it is a fascinating glimpse into a world where an empire felt powerful and anything seemed possible--if there was an engine behind it.
Engines of the Imagination: Renaissance Culture and the Rise of the Machine
by Jonathan SawdayAt what point did machines and technology begin to have an impact on the cultural consciousness and imagination of Europe? How was this reflected through the art and literature of the time? Was technology a sign of the fall of humanity from its original state of innocence or a sign of human progress and mastery over the natural world? In his characteristically lucid and captivating style, Jonathan Sawday investigates these questions and more by engaging with the poetry, philosophy, art, and engineering of the period to find the lost world of the machine in the pre-industrial culture of the European Renaissance. The aesthetic and intellectual dimension of these machines appealed to familiar figures such as Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Montaigne, and Leonardo da Vinci as well as to a host of lesser known writers and artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This intellectual engagement with machines in the European Renaissance gave rise to new attitudes towards gender, work and labour, and even fostered the new sciences of artificial life and reason which would be pursued by figures such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Leibniz in the seventeenth century. Writers, philosophers and artists had mixed and often conflicting reactions to technology, reflecting a paradoxical attitude between modern progress and traditional values. Underpinning the enthusiastic creation of a machine-driven world, then, were stories of loss and catastrophe. These contradictory attitudes are part of the legacy of the European Renaissance, just as much as the plays of Shakespeare or the poetry of John Milton. And this historical legacy helps to explain many of our own attitudes towards the technology that surrounds us, sustains us, and sometimes perplexes us in the modern world.