Several EHL scholars contributed to this forthcoming book:
It is impossible to understand societies without looking at their technological underpinnings. Technology constitutes the very fabric of societies’ political, economic, cultural, and everyday realities. Building on recent historiography, this book offers the first overview of the global history of contemporary technology. Gathering more than fifty specialists of the history of technology, the collection of essays presents an overview of technological evolutions on a global scale. The book challenges both teleological approaches on progress and eurocentric perspectives. It explores the complex socio-economic implications of ‘techniques’ (and not simply technology) as well as the systems of representation and power structures that led to the emergence of today’s world.
The purpose of the collected essays is to offer a new history of technology. In this perspective, a central question concerns the very category of the history of technology, i.e. the term ‘technology’ itself. Refusing both the limitations of ‘technology’ and of ‘useful knowledge’, the book stresses the necessity to study technology as embodying human activity as a whole. In that sense, history of technology, envisioned as techniques rather than purely technologies, is intrinsically linked to anthropology and ethnology.
This book is divided into three sections. The first section opens with a world tour of techniques, restoring the complexity of regional historiographies and of the meanings given to technological activities in different societies. The second part focuses on sectors of activity, processes, and products with a strong emphasis on means of production and communication, the exploitation of natural resources, major technological systems, infrastructures and networks. The final section provides access to major cross-related issues. It pays particular attention to the role played by technology/techniques in the process of globalization, particularly through colonization, imperialism, and the development of large technological systems.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Global History of Techniques, Globalization of the History of Techniques, by Guillaume Carnino, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, Jérôme Lamy
Part 1: Techniques Across the World
Introduction, by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez
From the ‘Stone Age’ to the Digital Era: Techniques in Oceania, a Brief Historiography (19th–21st centuries), by Marie Durand
The Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries: At the Crossroads of Technological Continuity and Sudden Western Modernity, by Elisabeth Mortier
Integration Process of Science and Technology, between Dependence and the Desire to Innovate: the Case of Maghreb, by Yamina Bettahar
Technology and Modernisation in East Asia: What Dragons Can Teach us about Global History, by Francesca Bray, Alexandra Kobiljski
Framing the History of Technology in India: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age, by Dhruv Raina, Omprasad, Nayani Sarma
African Technological Pasts since 1800, by Joshua Grace
Central European Historical Writing on Technology, from 1945 to the Present Day: Institutional Contexts and Directions of Research,
by Jawad Daheur
Unpacking ‘Eurocentric’ Technology Discourses ‘Back Home’: Technology and Societal Challenges in Western Europe, by Erik van der Vleuten
The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and Post-socialist Russia, 19th century-early 21st century, by Elena Kochetkova, Julia Obertreis
Technology in North America: Nation Building, Industrialization, and Technoscience, by Jérôme Baudry
Latin America in the Global History of Technology, by David Pretel
Part 2: Artefacts, Processes, Sectors
Introduction, by Guillaume Carnino
Technology and its Temporalities, a Global Perspective, by Jonas van der Straeten, Heike Waltraud Weber
Mining and Extractive Industries: Prospecting, Extracting, And Post-mining Techniques in the Anthropocene Era, by Kevin Troch
Heavy Industries, from Steel and Molecules to the Cloud, by Florence Hachez-Leroy
Energy in the History of Technology, by Mahdi Khelfaoui, Anaël Marrec
Aeronautics and Aerospace: Globalization and Technical Junctions, by Jérôme Lamy, Arnaud Saint-Martin
Mobility Techniques: Objects and Supports of Transfers, by Arnaud Passalacqua
Sailing and Fishing: when Technical Innovation Reshaped the Seas, by Géraldine Barron, Julia Lajus
Water Harnessed by Industry: Hydraulic Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by Raphaël Morera, Elisabeth Mortier
Food Technology: Food Preservation, Packaging and Transport, by Ludovic Laloux
Four Examples of Transformations of Agricultural Techniques from the 19th to the Beginning of the 21st century, by Fabien Knittel
Electrifying Information: Global Telecommunication Technologies 19th–21st centuries, by Vincent Kuitenbrouwer
From Calculators to Datacenters: History of Industrial Computing and Quantification, by Guillaume Carnino
From Banking Computerization to Fintech: The Digital Revolution in Banking (1950s–1990s), by Sabine Effosse, Laure Quennouelle-Corre
Two Centuries of Technical Progress in Civil Engineering and Construction: A Few Lines of Strength, by Dominique Barjot
The Factory of Desire: Textiles and Techniques (19th–21st centuries), by Audrey Millet
Part 3: Cross-cutting Issues
Introduction, by Jérôme Lamy
Technology as a Human Science, by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez
Laboratory Techniques, by Joris Mercelis
Big Science and Technological Transformations, by Olof Hallonsten
Technique and Law, by Alessandro Nuvolari, Caterina Sganga
Training and Technological Education, by Stéphane Lembré
Prometheus Unbound: War and Technology from 1800 to Globalisation, by Patrice Bret
Taylorism, by Patrick Fridenson
Conflicts and Controversies over Techniques, by François Jarrige
Body Techniques and the Search for Human Perfection: From the Regeneration of the Social Body to the Injunction to Surpass Oneself,
by Cecilia Calheiros
Thinking the Co-constitution of Gender and Technology from a Feminist Perspective, by Virginie Julliard
Technologies of Art and Culture: Film and Sound, by Martine Beugnet, Mathieu Duplay
A Short and Reflexive History of Everyday Life Technologies, Late 18th–21st Centuries, by Gil Bartholeyns, Manuel Charpy
Technology, Pollution, and Environment, by Soraya Boudia, Nathalie Jas
Repair, Recycling and Waste, by Thierry Bonnot, Michel Letté