Leonardo to the Internet:

Technology and Culture from the Renaissance to the Present

Thomas J. Misa

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022; 3rd edition

Chapter 11. The Question of Technology

DISCUSS the (rival) McKibben/Berry and Gilder/Kurzweil/Kelly views on technology. How does this book critique or challenge these authors?

"Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to science."^(*) Explain why this observation is important for science-policy makers and citizens today.

Compare technologies that had clear economic effects with ones that had strong cultural or political effects.

Identify 2-3 technologies of European integration (chapters 8 and 11) and discuss their political and cultural effects on "Europe" and the wider world.

Were technologies of empire "neutral tools"^(*)? How did these technologies change the colonized country . . . how did they change imperialist countries?

Discuss Misa's concepts for technology and culture. Define and discuss each concept. Can you identify a good example to illustrate it?

displacement

disjunctions

divisions

Suggest YOUR OWN QUESTION about the "big picture" of technology and culture:

Discuss today's challenges of [a] sustainability, [b] security, [c] privacy, or [d] poverty. Can you imagine a "technology-free" solution?


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