Book Review the Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900
Modern technology is often thought of as encompassing, frequently being changed and updated, and science-intensive with electronic or digital bits. When we do consider technology in historical terms we customarily see it as a driving force of progress, something that has enabled people to perform tasks more effectively than ever before, which brings a new age into being. However, people rarely recognize that modern technology is not just a matter of electricity, mass production, aerospace, nuclear power and the internet. Modern technology also involves the trivial creations we are not likely to care about. The rickshaw, DDT, cement, asbestos, the spinning wheel or corrugated iron are just a few pieces of technology that have become a significant part of everyday and historical use. These undervalued technologies have become hugely important throughout their existence in places like the Third World and have become overshadowed by novelty inventions like the V-2 rocket or the Concorde jet. In The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 written by David Edgerton, a well-known and leading British historian that has challenged conventional analyses of technology for over twenty years, offers an alternative way of understanding technology, technological change, and the role of technology in our lives. Edgerton reassess the significance of such acclaimed inventions such as the birth control pill and information technology (IT), underscores the continued importance of unheralded technology, debunking the idea that we live in an era of ever-increasing invention and casting doubt upon the many naive assertions about the “information age”. Edgerton’s main focus in The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 is that innovation-centric accounts of the history of technology give us a very distorted understanding of technology’s effects on society and society’s effects on technology. Edgerton states, “many cutting edge technologies
Bibliography: Edgerton , David. The Shock of the Old Technology and Global History since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Sutherland, John. The Guardian, "The Ideas interview: David Edgerton." Last modified August 1st 2006. Accessed November 31, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/aug/01/news.g2. Professor Geoff Hayes November 1st, 2011 [ 15 ]. John Sutherland. The Guardian, "The Ideas interview: David Edgerton." Last modified August 1st 2006. Accessed November 31, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/aug/01/news.g2.