Authors:
- Provides a key survey on the history of civilization
- Hashes out several highly controversial, modern aspects of technology and science
- Carefully considers the underlying politics, philosophy, and economics
Part of the book series: Springer Praxis Books (PRAXIS)
Part of the book sub series: Popular Science (POPS)
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Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
Our natural world has been irretrievably altered by humans, for humans. From domesticated wheat fields to nuclear power plants and spacecraft, everything we see and interact with has in some way been changed by the presence of our species, starting from the Neolithic era so many centuries ago.
This book provides a crash course on the issues and debates surrounding technology’s shifting place in our society. It covers the history of our increasingly black-box world, which some theorize will end with technology accelerating beyond our understanding. At the same time, it analyzes competing trends and theories, the lack of scientific knowledge of large sections of the population, the dogmas of pseudoscience, and the growing suspicion of science and technology, which may inevitably lead to scientific stagnation.
What will the future of our civilization look like? How soon might scientific acceleration or stagnation arrive at our doorstep, and just how radicallywill such technological shifts change our culture? These are issues that we must address now, to insure our future goes the way we choose.Authors and Affiliations
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Department of Mechanics, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Giancarlo Genta
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Centallo, Italy
Paolo Riberi
About the authors
Genta is author of 24 books and 90 papers published in Italian, American and English Journals, and 263 papers presented to symposia. Two of the books are text books of Motor Vehicle Mechanics, Mechanics of Vibration and Mechanics of Space Robots (published in Italian and English), used in Italian and American Universities. Genta coauthored a well-received popular science book on space exploration with Michael Rycroft, published by Cambridge University Press. It received very good reviews, including a very favourable one from A.C. Clarke (see his author's website) and a popular science book on the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence". He has also written two science fiction novels published in the Science and Fiction series by Springer.
Paolo Riberi’s independent research activity is mainly focused on Ancient Christian Literature. He is author of two books about Gnosticism and Apocryphal Gospels, both published in Italian and titled "Maria Maddalena e le altre: le figure femminili degli gnostici" (2015) and "Pillola Rossa o Loggia Nera? Messaggi gnostici nel cinema tra Matrix, Westworld e Twin Peaks" (2017). He took part in a multi-author paper about Medieval Syriac literature coordinated by prof. Alessandro Mengozzi with fellow researchers Alessandra Barotto and Monica Volpicelli, titled “La verità visibile nella natura e nella scrittura: Sul baco da seta di Khamis bar Qardaḥe”, and published on KERVAN International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies in 2011.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Technology and the Growth of Civilization
Authors: Giancarlo Genta, Paolo Riberi
Series Title: Springer Praxis Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25583-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-25582-4Published: 24 September 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-25583-1Published: 05 September 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 267
Number of Illustrations: 34 b/w illustrations, 11 illustrations in colour
Topics: Popular Science in History, Philosophy of Technology, Science and Technology Studies, History of Technology