Visions of Technology - (Machines, Systems and the Human World) by Richard Rhodes (Paperback)

About the Book

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" presents a compelling overview of the effects of technology on modern life in a one-of-a-kind collection. Illustrations throughout.

Book Synopsis

Technology was the blessing and the bane of the twentieth century. Human life span nearly doubled in the West, but in no century were more human beings killed by new technologies of war. Improvements in agriculture now feed increasing billions, but pesticides and chemicals threaten to poison the earth. Does technology improve us or diminish us? Enslave us or make us free? With this first-ever collection of the essential twentieth-century writings on technology, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes explores the optimism, ambivalence, and wrongheaded judgments with which Americans have faced an ever-shifting world.

Visions of Technology collects writings on events from the Great Exposition of 1900 and the invention of the telegraph to the advent of genetic counseling and the defeat of Garry Kasparov by IBM's chess-playing computer, Deep Blue. Its gems of opinion and history include Henry Ford on the horseless carriage, Robert Caro on the transformation of New York City, J. Robert Oppenheimer on science and war, Loretta Lynn on the Pill and much more. Together, they chronicle an unprecedented century of change.

Review Quotes

"A captivating encapsulation of our dissonant feelings about technology."-Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

"The book reads like a condensed history of technology, told through the strained voices of those who marvel -- or cower -- at its impact."-Jeff Pooley, Brill's Content

"With a keen eye for both breadth and detail, for irony and insight, Rhodes has found some of the best thinking by figures ranging from Henry Ford and Albert Einstein to Rachel Carson and Joan Didion."-Scott LaFee, The San Diego Union-Tribune

About the Author

Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He graduated from Yale University and has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Appearing as host and correspondent for documentaries on public television's Frontline and American Experience series, he has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard and MIT and is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Visit his website RichardRhodes.com.