Engineering Modernity PDF Download

Author: Daniel MacKay Ringrose
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Author: Massimo Moraglio
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785334492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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On March 26th, 1923, in a formal ceremony, construction of the Milan–Alpine Lakes autostrada officially began, the preliminary step toward what would become the first European motorway. That Benito Mussolini himself participated in the festivities indicates just how important the project was to Italian Fascism. Driving Modernity recounts the twisting fortunes of the autostrada, which—alongside railways, aviation, and other forms of mobility—Italian authorities hoped would spread an ideology of technological nationalism. It explains how Italy ultimately failed to realize its mammoth infrastructural vision, addressing the political and social conditions that made a coherent plan of development impossible.

Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062652575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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“Another gem from one of the world’s justly celebrated historians specializing in unusual and always fascinating subjects and people.” — Booklist (starred review) The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future. The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras—and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider. Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia. As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?

Author: Thomas J. Misa
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262633109
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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The book is divided into three parts.

Author: Mary Nolan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195070216
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Mary Nolan's Visions of Modernity explores the contradictory ways in which German trade unionists and industrialists, engineers and politicians, educators and social workers explained American economic success, envisioned a more efficient or "rationalized" economic system for Germany, and anguished over the social and cultural costs of adopting the American version of modernity.

Author: Martin Hammer
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300076882
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Naum Gabo (1890-1977), whose eventful life took him from his native Russia to Berlin, Paris, London, and finally the United States, achieved renown as one of the most inventive and controversial figures in twentieth-century sculpture. This book is the first comprehensive account of Gabo's life, career, and artistic theory and practice. Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder explore in detail the evolution of the artist's work and his aesthetic concerns, creative processes, assimilation of such new materials as plastic, and approach to public sculpture. The authors also examine his response to the scientific and political revolutions of his age and trace the origins and development of Gabo's utopian conviction that Constructivist art was profoundly in tune with modernity, social progress, and advances in science and technology. Drawing on Gabo's extensive and largely unpublished archives of letters, diaries, notebooks, models, and sketchbooks, Hammer and Lodder discuss the sculptor's work in the context of his relations with other avant-garde artists, architects, and critics, including his brother Antoine Pevsner. They also situate his aesthetic theory and practice within the Constructi

Author: Peter Wagner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745656846
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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We live in a modern age, but what does ‘modern’ mean and how can a reflection on ‘modernity’ help us to understand the world today? These are the questions that Peter Wagner sets out to answer in this concise and accessible book. Wagner begins by returning to the question of modernity's Western origins and its claims to open up a new and better era in the history of humanity. Modernity's claims and expectations have become more prevalent and widely shared, but in the course of their realization and diffusion they have also been radically transformed. In an acute and engaging analysis, Wagner examines the following key issues among others: - Modernity was based on the hope for freedom and reason, but it created the institutions of contemporary capitalism and democracy. How does the freedom of the citizen relate to the freedom of the buyer and seller today? And what does disaffection with capitalism and democracy entail for the sustainability of modernity? - Rather than a single model of modernity, there is now a plurality of forms of modern socio-political organisation. What does this entail for our idea of progress and our hope that the future world can be better than the present one? - All nuance and broadening notwithstanding, our concept of modernity is in some way inextricably tied to the history of Europe and the West. How can we compare different forms of modernity in a 'symmetric', non-biased or non-Eurocentric way? How can we develop a world-sociology of modernity?

Author: Ian Welsh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134945809
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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During the nuclear heyday of the post-war years advocates of atomic power promised cheap electricity and a prosperous future. From the present, however, this promise seems tarnished by accidents, leaks and a lack of public confidence. Mobilising Modernity traces this journey from confidence in technology to the anxieties of the Risk Society questioning a number of conventional wisdoms en route. Paying close attention to social, political and policy aspects throughout, this book considers: * the nuclear moment from global collaborative project at Los Alamos to fragmented, bitterly competing projects * the 'atomic science movement's' use of symbolic resources to win national ascendancy * the implications of secrecy and the establishment of quasi-commercial organisations within the nuclear industry. This fascinating study also argues for the ongoing importance of the non-violent direct action groups that flourished during the 1970s, showing their continuing influence on today's new social movements. Welsh concludes by considering the implications of this historically based account for contemporary issues of risk and trust on current policy-making.

Author: A. A. Harms
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1860944337
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Engineering represents an ordered activity of creative design and inventive manufacture of ingenious devices. Its practitioners have thereby stimulated individuals, enlivened communities, enriched civilizations, and contributed to the shaping of cultures. The authors of this innovative text develop a systematic framework for engineering in time, making extensive use of adaptive heterogeneous progressions. When combined with considerations of feedback, feedforward, recursion, and branching an evolving and comprehensive characterization of engineering becomes evident. It is in this blending of chronology, emerging theory, and professional practice that engineering finds its foundational role in innovation design, device reliability, intellectual property, technology risks, public safety, professional ethics, material accounting, and other recurring themes relevant to contemporary engineering. Engineering clearly emerges as a complex and increasingly important profession. The authors introduce concepts and methods -- including a critical definition of engineering -- and selectively adapt symbolic-mathematical relations. The technical level of analysis is suitable for the undergraduate curriculum commonly encountered in colleges of engineering.

Author: Sahara Ahmed
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9819718295
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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