This book presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based upon recent scholarship in the history of technology and upon relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. It challenges the popular notion that technology advances by the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions owing little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies taken selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, and reappear with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that have long been available to humanity; the second is necessity: the belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological requirements such as food, shelter, and defense; and the third is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological progress. Although the book is not intended to provide a strict chronological account of the development of technology, historical examples - including many of the major achievements of Western technology: the waterwheel, the printing press, the steam engine, automobiles and trucks, and the transistor - are used extensively to support its theoretical framework. The Evolution of Techology will be of interest to all readers seeking to learn how and why technology changes, including both students and specialists in the history of technology and science.

The Nature of Technology will change the way you think about this fundamental subject forever. W. Brian Arthur's many years of thinking and writing about technology have culminated in a unique understanding of his subject. Here he examines the nature of technology itself: what is it and how does it evolve? Giving rare insights into the evolution of specific technologies and a new framework for thinking about others, every sentence points to some further truth and fascination. At a time when we are ever more reliant on technological solutions for the world's problems, it is extraordinary how little we actually understand the processes that lead to innovation and invention. Until now. This will be a landmark book that will define its subject, and inspire people to think about technology in depth for the very first time.

War has at some point touched every nation. Beginning with ancient history and following through to the present, this book addresses the question of why war exists, and explains the shapes in which it occurs. It will lead young readers on a journey through time by tracing weapons from the earliest stones and clubs to modern technological military warfare. Along with the evolution of weaponry through the ages, it also goes into the development of protective gear, transportation, communication, and military strategies.

The idea of "understanding the present through its history" is based on two insights. First, it helps to know where a technology comes from: what were its predecessors, how did they evolve as a result of the continuous efforts to solve theoretical and practical problems, who were crucial in their emergence, and which cultural differences made them develop into divergent families of artifacts? Second, and closely related to the first insight, how does a certain technology or system fit into its societal context, its culture of mobility, its engineering culture, its culture of car driving, its alternatives, its opponents? Only thus, by studying its prehistory and its socio-cultural context, can we acquire a true 'grasp' of a technology. The Evolution of Automotive Technology: A Handbook, Second Edition covers one and a quarter century of the automobile, conceived as a cultural history of its technology, aimed at engineering students and all those who wish to have a concise introduction into the basics of automotive technology and its long-term development. (ISBN:9781468605976 ISBN:9781468605969 ISBN:9781468605983 DOI:10.4271/9781468605976) 2nd Edition.

A complete account of evolutionary thought in the social, environmental and policy sciences, creating bridges with biology.

Ground-breaking yet non-technical analysis of the analogy that technological artefacts 'evolve' like biological organisms.

Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain brings together historians with a wide range of interests to take a uniquely wide-lens view of how technology and the environment have been intimately and irreversibly entangled in Britain over the last 300 years. It combines, for the first time, two perspectives with much to say about Britain since the industrial revolution: the history of technology and environmental history. Technologies are modified environments, just as nature is to varying extents engineered. Furthermore, technologies and our living and non-living environment are both predominant material forms of organisation – and self-organisation – that surround and make us. Both have changed over time, in intersecting ways. Technologies discussed in the collection include bulldozers, submarine cables, automobiles, flood barriers, medical devices, museum displays and biotechnologies. Environments investigated include bogs, cities, farms, places of natural beauty and pollution, land and sea. The book explores this diversity but also offers an integrated framework for understanding these intersections.