STS.069 | Fall 2002 | Undergraduate

Technology in a Dangerous World

Readings

STS.069 Technology in a Dangerous World - Reading List

Beck, Ulrich. The Risk Society. Translated by Mark Ritter. London: Sage, 1992, Part I, pp. 1-44.

Castells, Manuel. “Prologue: the Net and the Self.” In The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000 [1996], pp. 1-27.

Castells, Manuel. “Communal Heavens.” In The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997, pp. 1-20 and 65-67.

Castells, Manuel. “Conclusion: Social Change in the Network Society.” In The Power of Identity, pp. 354-362.

Castells, Manuel. “Death Denied,” and “Instant Wars.” In The Rise of the Network Society, pp. 481-491.

Castells, Manuel. “The Other Face of the Earth: Social Movements against the New Global Order.” In The Power of Identity, pp. 68-72 and 97-109.

Castells, Manuel. “The Perverse Connection: The Global Criminal Economy.” In End of Millennium. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, pp. 165-205.

Castells, Manuel. “A Powerless State?” In The Power of Identity, pp. 254-269.

Castells, Manuel. “The Rise of the Fourth World.” In End of Millennium, pp. 70-95 and 149-165.

Chisholm, Sallie W., et al. “Dis-Crediting Ocean Fertilization,” Science 294 (12 October 2001): 309-310.

Galison, Peter. “An Accident of History.” In Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Galison and Alex Roland. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000, pp. 2-43.

Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990, Chap. 1, 3 and 4, pp. 1-53 and 79-150.

Gras, Alain. “Big is Beautiful.” Forthcoming in “Forum on Rethinking Technology in the Aftermath of September 11,” History and Technology 19, 1 (2003).

Hughes, Thomas P. “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems.” In The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Edited by Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes and Trevor Pinch. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1987, pp. 51-82.

Hughes, Thomas P. “MIT as System-Builder: SAGE.” In Rescuing Prometheus. New York: Pantheon, 1998, pp. 15-67.

MacKenzie, Donald. “Missile Accuracy: A Case Study in the Social Processes of Technological Change.” In The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Edited by Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes and Trevor Pinch. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1987, pp. 195-222.

MacKenzie, Donald. “Computer-Related Accidental Death.” In Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1998 [1996], pp. 185-214.

MacKenzie, Donald. “Introduction.” In Knowing Machines, pp. 1-11.

McEvoy, Arthur F. “Working Environments.” In Accidents in History: Injuries, Fatalities, and Social Relations. Edited by Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997, pp. 59-89.

McKellar, Shelley. “Artificial Hearts–A Technological Fix More Monstrous Than Miraculous?” Paper presented at The Technological Fix Conference, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware, October 4-5, 2002.

McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. New York: Random House, 1989, pp. 3-29.

Mindell, David. War, Technology, and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 2000, Introduction, Chap. 4, and end of Conclusion, pp. 1-10, 61-69 and 144-150.

Morison, Elting. Machines, Men, and Modern Times. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1966, chap. 2, 4 and 6, pp. 17-44, 67-87 and 98-122.

Mumford, Lewis. “Technology and the Nature of Man.” Technology and Culture 7, 3 (Summer 1966): 303-317.

Murakami, Haruki. Underground. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel. New York: Random House/Vintage, 2000, pp. 3-44, 127-131, 150-153, 215-241 and 317-332.

Perrow, Charles. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. New York: Basic Books, 1984, chap. 3, pp. 62-100.

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1986 [1977], chap. 7, 8, 9, 10 and Excursi, pp. 113-170.

Vest, Charles M. “Openness, Opportunity and Security in Universities: A National Challenge.” Address to the National Association and College and University Attorneys. Boston, Massachusetts, 26 June 2002. (PDF)

Weart, Spencer. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988, chap. 6, 11, 18 and conclusion, pp. 103-127, 199-214, 348-374 and 421-426.

Williams, Rosalind H. Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002, chap. 1, pp. 1-28.

Reading Questions

Reading Question 1 (PDF)
Reading Question 2 (PDF)

STS.092 Current Events from an STS Perspective - Book Review Selection List

Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Alder, Ken. The Measure of All Things. New York: Free Press, 2002.

Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000 [1996].

Castells, Manuel. The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.

Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.

Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz. London: Verso, 1990.

Hughes, Thomas P. American Genesis. New York: Penguin Books, 1989.

Hughes, Thomas P. Rescuing Prometheus. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.

Leslie, Stuart W. The Cold War and American Science. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

MacKenzie, Donald. Knowing Machines. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998 [1996].

MacKenzie, Donald. Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.

Malone, Patrick. The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1991.

McDougall, Walter . ….the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York: Basic Books, 1985.

McNeill, J. R. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the 20th Century World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.

McNeill, William. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since AD 1000. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Mindell, David. Between Human and Machine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Mindell, David. War, Technology and Experience aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Morison, Elting. Men, Machines, and Modern Times. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1966.

Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space in the 19th Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986 [1977].

Smith, Merritt Roe. Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977.

Smith, Merritt Roe, ed. Military Enterprise and Technological Change. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985.

Traweek, Sharon. Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Winner, Langdon. The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988 [1986].

White, Richard. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Course Info

As Taught In
Fall 2002
Learning Resource Types
Workshop Videos
Projects with Examples
Written Assignments