Loading...
Home EHL2023-12-20T11:53:14+01:00

The History Lab at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is a prominent center for the history of technology and socio-ecological change. We investigate the ambivalent roles of technology/ technique/ material culture in socio-ecological challenges and transformations from a long-term perspective, connecting past, present and future. We are embedded in the Technology, Innovation & Society group at TU/e, and host the Foundation for the History of Technology SHT, the secretariat of the Society for the History of Technology SHOT, and the editorship of Technology and Culture.

Making histories that take technology seriously—to inform sustainable socio-technical futures

LATEST NEWS

EVENTS

The 10th Gewina’s Woudschoten conference will be organized 21-22 June 2024 from Rotterdam (medical history group from Erasmus MC and

EHL and SHT will participate in and co-organize the joint annual conference of the Society for History of Technology SHOT

Joint meeting EASST-4S 2024

July 16July 19

The 11th quadrennial joint meeting of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society

CfP Conference website We live in a world of constant change. There are periods, however, of accelerated change in the

From June 29 to July 5, the ICHST will host its 27th congress in Ōtepoti Dunedin, New Zealand. The theme

Research challenge: we are witnessing steep social and environmental challenges

Technology is identified as both cause of, and solution to, these challenges. How can we use technology to solve problems, without creating new ones? We research this important question from a historical perspective.

RESEARCH
Latest publications

SCHOLARLY JOURNALS

TECHNOLOGY & CULTURE

 Technology and Culture is the quarterly of the Society for the History of Technology SHOT. In 2020-2025 Ruth Oldenziel succeeds Suzanne Moon (University of Oklahoma) as editor-in-chief of this pre-eminent history of technology journal.  The first issue prepared by her Eindhoven team was the 2020 July issue.

Previously, EHL/ Foundation SHT have also hosted Hermione Giffard, editor of the journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology ICON. Emeritus associate professor Gijs Mom founded and edited the journal Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies until 2017/18.

(CLASSICS) TEXTBOOK: Engineers and societal challenges 1815-2015

This book pioneers the historiography of engineering & societal challenges ca. 1815-2015. It examines why and how engineers have engaged with ‘grand challenges’, and whose challenges these were (with focus on societal, enterprise, and user challenges); why some technological solutions have unexpectedly created new problems; and how engineers have sought to anticipate technology’s puzzling ability to both help and harm (with special attention to technocratic and participatory innovation). The book content has found its way to over 10.000 students at TU/e and elsewhere.

(CLASSICS) IMPACT: De kwetsbare welvaart van Nederland

Een duurzaamheidsgeschiedenis van Nederland

[A Dutch Sustainability History]

This book pioneered the writing of a “sustainability history” of the Netherlands since 1850. It presents a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative ‘sustainability monitors’ depicting the state of affairs in 1850, 1910, 1970 and 2015, with qualitative narrative analysis to interpret, explain, and at times challenge the quantitative patterns thus identified. The Dutch language version has become a reference in Dutch political debates. The English version Well-being, Sustainability and Social Development: The Netherlands 1850–2050 is available in open access here.

(CLASSICS) BOOK SERIES: Technology and the Making of Europe 1850-2000

This prize-winning book series reframes the history of European integration and fragmentation through the lens of technology actors, practices and processes. Six richly illustrated and compelling volumes discuss how experts, innovators, users and governance bodies fundamentally reshaped European space, daily lives, identities and politics from the mid 19th Century onward. Go to the series website

  

(CLASSICS) Technology and the Making of the Netherlands in the long 20th century

Read more about the contested modernization of the Netherlands as a technological nation.

Johan Schot, Harry Lintsen, and Arie Rip (eds.), Technology and the making of the Netherlands. The Age of Contested Modernization, 1850-1970 (MIT Press, 2010)

This book is the English-language translation of the capstone synthesis volume of the 13-volume Dutch-language book series on technology in the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Eindhoven History Lab was established in 2017 as the local umbrella for Eindhoven university’s history of technology researchers and the in-house Foundation for the History of Technology SHT (Stichting Historie der Techniek). The Lab is locally embedded in the Technology, Innovation & Society section of the School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology. Internationally the Lab is a proactive partner in the scholarly associations Society for the History of Technology SHOT,  the International Committee for the History of Technology ICOHTEC, and the  Tensions of Europe research community. In the Dutch speaking world, we participate in the NW Posthumus interuniversity research school for social and economic history.

Go to Top