American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970The book that helped earn Thomas P. Hughes his reputation as one of the foremost historians of technology of our age and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, American Genesis tells the sweeping story of America's technological revolution. 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, 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. |
Contents
A GIGANTIC TIDAL WAVE OF HUMAN INGENUITY | 13 |
CHOOSING AND SOLVING PROBLEMS | 53 |
BRAIN FOR THE MILITARY | 96 |
NO PHILANTHROPIC ASYLUM FOR INDIGENT SCIENTISTS | 138 |
THE SYSTEM MUST BE FIRST | 184 |
TAYLORISMUS +FORDISMUS AMERIKANISMUS | 249 |
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airplane American architects architecture Armstrong Arthur Morgan artists Atomic Energy automobile became believed bomb building century Chicago complex components construction Corbusier corporations culture devices Duchamp economic Edison electrification Elmer Sperry engineers enthusiastic established experience experimental factory Fessenden Ford's Forest German Gropius Groves gyro Henry Ford Hughes Ibid independent inventors Insull invention inventor-entrepreneurs Lawrence Le Corbusier Lee de Forest Lenin Lewis Mumford Lilienthal machine Manhattan Project manufacture mechanical Menlo Park metaphor military modern technology Mumford Museum National naval navy nology nuclear organization patents physicists planning plant plutonium political Pont president problems reactor regional research laboratory Rickover River Rouge plant Russia Samuel Insull scientific management scientists second industrial revolution social society Soviet Union Sperry style submarine system builders systems of production Szilard Taylor tech technical Tesla transmission United uranium utility Whitney wireless workers Wright wrote York