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Review
"Mr. Basalla argues his case ingeniously and cites a variety of examples...the reader is astonished again and again at the ease with which Mr. Basalla overturns many cherished prejudices and preconceptions about inventors and their creations." New York Times Book Review
"George Basalla has done scholars a valuable service...(his)own insights at an intermediate level of analysis may well provide the building blocks for a more rigorous and sophisticated theory of technological change." Science
"A thoughtful and thought provoking analysis drawing on a wide range of historical examples that will be of use to scholars and students." - Science, Technology and Society
"a refreshing book...a lively and revealing perspective on the history of technology. This book should find its way into undergraduate courses." American Scientist
"Both the tech-happy and the tech-wary will find news in this view of technology as an evolutionary system. Fascinating case studies show how society-bending inventions - even 'breakthroughs' - proceed from small, incremental variations upon earlier inventions." Whole Earth Catalog
"George Basalla has done scholars a valuable service...(his)own insights at an intermediate level of analysis may well provide the building blocks for a more rigorous and sophisticated theory of technological change." Science
"A thoughtful and thought provoking analysis drawing on a wide range of historical examples that will be of use to scholars and students." - Science, Technology and Society
"a refreshing book...a lively and revealing perspective on the history of technology. This book should find its way into undergraduate courses." American Scientist
"Both the tech-happy and the tech-wary will find news in this view of technology as an evolutionary system. Fascinating case studies show how society-bending inventions - even 'breakthroughs' - proceed from small, incremental variations upon earlier inventions." Whole Earth Catalog
Product Description
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.
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The rich and bewildering diversity of life forms inhabiting the earth has intrigued humankind for centuries. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The rich and bewildering diversity of life forms inhabiting the earth has intrigued humankind for centuries. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
continuous improvements
1 Mar 2005
Format:Paperback
In considering the role of major inventions in history, there have been two major views. This book puts forward one of them. Namely that technological progress can be understood in part by analogy to biological evolution, as a series of continuous and incremental innovations, that arise out of the gestalt of the inventor's environment. The authors argue eloquently, with much cited research to buttress their arguments.
Certainly, most inventions are indeed incremental gains in understanding. But one might say that if you take the evolution analogy, there is also a corresponding hypothesis akin to punctuated equilibrium. Namely that sometimes, an inventor or scientist really does make a fundamental discontinuity in understanding. In a way that a continuously innovative procedure would have been extremely unlikely to garner. In science at least, the best examples may be Einstein's General Relativity, and Claude Shannon's Information Theory. Nothing like either was even remotely contemplated by their contemporaries. Ok, granted, the book talks about technology, not science. But at some fundamental level, the discussion of progress encompasses both.
Certainly, most inventions are indeed incremental gains in understanding. But one might say that if you take the evolution analogy, there is also a corresponding hypothesis akin to punctuated equilibrium. Namely that sometimes, an inventor or scientist really does make a fundamental discontinuity in understanding. In a way that a continuously innovative procedure would have been extremely unlikely to garner. In science at least, the best examples may be Einstein's General Relativity, and Claude Shannon's Information Theory. Nothing like either was even remotely contemplated by their contemporaries. Ok, granted, the book talks about technology, not science. But at some fundamental level, the discussion of progress encompasses both.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Do Technologies 'Evolve'?
25 Feb 2007
Format:Paperback
Basalla's 'Evolution of Technology' makes the analogy to biological evolution to explain the development of technologies: the Paleolithic chipping stone becomes the crude stone-and-wood hammer which later becomes a cast-iron hammer which eventually becomes the giant mechanical steam hammer. Of course, thinking of technology in such evolutionary terms can ONLY be analogical--tools don't have genes, and they certainly don't procreate. What tools and technologies have is diversity (a key component in evolutionary change); however, it takes human needs--necessities--to bring about technological developments. This historical combination of technological diversity and human necessity is "evolution" for Basalla.
Basalla's argument is therefore a practical method for thinking about the history of technology--one of a number of different methods (for other alternatives see anything by Arnold Pacey, or the 'Short History of Technology' by Derry and Williams). And in this respect Basalla offers a fine approach. In fact, his book may well be the most readable history of technological progress available, but it is also one that places more weight on a single analogy than the analogy itself may be able to bear.
Basalla's argument is therefore a practical method for thinking about the history of technology--one of a number of different methods (for other alternatives see anything by Arnold Pacey, or the 'Short History of Technology' by Derry and Williams). And in this respect Basalla offers a fine approach. In fact, his book may well be the most readable history of technological progress available, but it is also one that places more weight on a single analogy than the analogy itself may be able to bear.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
How does technology evolve over time?
1 Dec 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Fascinating study on the evolution of technology from a variation and selection perspective. The book is written by a historian, but unusually for a historian the book is driven by a strong theoretical perspective.
The author uses the example of barbed wire, but he does not just report a lot of historical details. He also places those details in perspective by using an evoluationary model of technical change. That makes this author 100 times more interesting than had the author that just gives us historical facts.
The author uses the example of barbed wire, but he does not just report a lot of historical details. He also places those details in perspective by using an evoluationary model of technical change. That makes this author 100 times more interesting than had the author that just gives us historical facts.
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