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Culture’s Engine

Inside Science and Technology

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. William Gosling

    1. University of Bath, Bath, UK

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  • Provides a timely and valuable examination of technology and its relation to science

  • Offers sensitive and detailed accounts, ranging from the prehistoric to contemporary, to examine the many and subtle aspects in which technology emerges from and drives our culture

  • Explores and resolves the common confusion between technology and science

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Table of contents (21 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • William Gosling
    Pages 1-3

  3. The Odd Couple

    • William Gosling
    Pages 5-15

  4. Why Are Humans Different?

    • William Gosling
    Pages 17-23

  5. Three Flavours of Technology

    • William Gosling
    Pages 25-43

  6. Subtle Subversives

    • William Gosling
    Pages 45-51

  7. The Active Elements Appear

    • William Gosling
    Pages 53-59

  8. Drivers of Technology

    • William Gosling
    Pages 61-65

  9. Technology’s Other Half

    • William Gosling
    Pages 67-82

  10. Talk the Talk

    • William Gosling
    Pages 83-93

  11. Patterns of Innovation

    • William Gosling
    Pages 95-107

  12. Invention Push and Market Pull

    • William Gosling
    Pages 109-121

  13. Deep Design

    • William Gosling
    Pages 123-141

  14. A Hazardous Business

    • William Gosling
    Pages 143-153

  15. Will Anyone Want It?

    • William Gosling
    Pages 155-167

  16. Failure Foreseen

    • William Gosling
    Pages 169-182

  17. Can Machines Think?

    • William Gosling
    Pages 183-191

  18. Lady Lovelace’s Revenge

    • William Gosling
    Pages 193-208

  19. The Dark Side

    • William Gosling
    Pages 209-223

  20. Be Careful What You Wish For

    • William Gosling
    Pages 225-235
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Keywords

About this book

Culture’s Engine offers an insightful and penetrating analysis of the enduring relationship between technology and society. William Gosling explores in absorbing historical detail how humans have experienced change through a sequence of technological revolutions, each giving rise to new social organisation, which in turn influences the shape and timing of the next such revolution. Gosling argues that it is through this dialogue that successful technology sets the direction and pace of all cultural evolution. The state of technology at any time is the major influence on the world, and not just the material world. This book then is not a history of technology, still less of science. It fundamentally questions how technology and social forces interact, leading to these successive revolutions and their outcomes.

Reviews

‘With sensitivity and detailed illustrations, ranging from the prehistoric to the current, William Gosling explores, in a unified way, the many and subtle aspects in which technology emerges from and drives our culture.’

—Sir Michael Berry, University of Bristol, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Bath, Bath, UK

    William Gosling

About the author

William Gosling,  a British engineer, has spent half his working life as an academic, holding professorial appointments at Swansea and then Bath, where mobile communication was his passion. The other half was in industry, where he ended as a Director and  chief technical officer of an electronics company with a ten-figure annual turnover. He is also a Past-president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Culture’s Engine

  • Book Subtitle: Inside Science and Technology

  • Authors: William Gosling

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4592-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-4591-7Published: 18 October 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-4594-8Published: 19 October 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-4592-4Published: 17 October 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 260

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Culture, Cultural Anthropology

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