In my years as a sixth grade teacher, one of my main tasks at the beginning of the year was teaching kids the definition of culture. Many had heard the term, but definitions eluded the students. My plan was to break culture down into a series of parts: food, clothing, shelter, language, economy, several others, and of course, technology. My definition of technology often was difficult for kids to fathom as it encompassed all the different technologies that a society possessed, some simple and rudimentary like the knife or fork we use to eat with, while others were world-changing like the internet. The author of this book divides history into several key periods, each defined by the different way technology and culture were interwoven in these different eras. He looks focusses extensively on the world changing technologies that emerged from these periods, the cultural forces that created them, and the effects they had on the culture of that periods.
Chapter 1 focuses on the period of Leonardo da Vinci himself. This period was defined by court patronage. Patronage was the process where the wealthy and powerful would sponsor an artist, scientist, or both (as in da Vinci’s case). This sponsorship could be for many reasons. It could be to produce gain for those patronizing someone, or it could be just a way to sponsor a talented young individual as she, or more likely in that time period, he would use the talents they have. This is the format that allowed Leonardo to produce the wide variety of things he did in both art and science. The variety of his achievements is a good example of what drove technological advances in that time period. In the patronage system, what the patron wanted would drive the direction of the technological advancement. This system will surface again in later areas, but is pretty simple. If I’m paying you, I have say in what you work on and how those developments are used.
Chapter 2 described the Era of Commerce. This era was defined by traders and trading companies. It was discovered that there was tremendous profits available in trading. The key was to find something that was cheap and plentiful and thus cheap in one location, and transport it to a place where it was rare and thus more valuable. Our class presenter characterized this period as commercial but not industrial. The things being traded were not being produced but were rather raw materials and commodities such as sugar, slaves, tobacco, cotton, and even tulips. Technology of this era focused on allowing these traders to function in the most timely and efficient way possible. It also shows the diversity of what qualifies as technology. The aspect of this period that focused on building better ships and navigation tools is a fairly obvious example of technological examples. However, the development of the trading systems, the commodities houses, and the banks particularly in the Holland were examples of other new ideas that show the less obvious side of technology.
Chapter 3 chronicles the period often described as the first industrial revolution. At the beginning of this period most people were still living an agrarian lifestyle. However, as new inventions allowed the amount of food needed to be produced by a smaller number of people, combined with the new technologies such as the steam engine allowed the development of the first factories. This period was most prevalent in Great Britain as they had all the right pieces to make this new system function: iron, coal, and water power were readily available, numerous colonies to provide raw materials not found at home, and a large population freed up for factory work by the technological advancements in agriculture such as the seed drill and cotton gin. The factory system was able to produce goods faster and cheaper and was built on the premise that efficiency increases profits. While several business flourished under this model, other ancillary enterprises sprang up around these factories as well.
Chapter 4 was a natural next step in the progression. As these factories were reliant on raw materials that often were not located near the factory, both the acquisition and maintenance of empires as well as improvement of transportation methods would drive this period. The large factories were predominantly in Europe. These European countries relied on two things from their empires, cheap raw material and a captive market for finished products. Also during this time the steam engine was converted from a means of powering factory machinery to a means of faster transportation through railroads and steamships. These new methods of transportation drove this era as they provided cheaper and faster transportation of raw materials and finished products, but also provided for fast military transportation necessary to maintain order in growing empires.
While many people prior to the era chronicled in chapter 5 may be referred to as scientists or engineers, they were likely given those titles after their accomplishments, not as a job title. That changed during the second industrial revolution. While the patronage system did have a little sense of being employed, it wasn’t the same. This was an era of corporate industry driving technology. Companies acquired technology in many ways beyond those developed by their employees. This was the beginning of the relationships between universities and corporations. Companies also purchased technologies or bought up competitors to acquire their technologies. This is a practice still alive and well today. This was also the time where industrial chemistry became more prominent. Synthetic materials began to replace natural ones, often outperforming natural products and for less cost.
Chapter 6 was on Modernism was one of the harder chapters for me to comprehend in reference to the rest of the book. Each previous chapter seems to be charting a course straight through history with the way technology changed culture and the way culture changed technology. Modernism seems to take the book on to a bit of a tangent that seems to dead-end. The modernist movement makes use of technology but this era seems to be more about architecture and ideas than about the hard technologies described in other chapters. Maybe this was the author’s purpose. Many previous chapters had described ways that technology had changed culture, but modernism represents a shift in cultural beliefs that isn’t forced by technology but rather a result of technology. What is ironic to me is that these idealistic and left leaning ideologies were fostered in countries that would soon be led in and entirely different path by far right wing dictatorships.
That leads us to Chapter 7, The Means of Destruction. While war and military purposes have always driven technological advances, this was more true during the period leading up to World War 2 and the long Cold War that would follow it. Leonardo himself was employed for a period of time to develop military technology for his patrons, but never on the scale seen during this period. The Manhattan Project was a key example the author used to show how military objectives drove the top scientists, universities, and corporations to work together to achieve military supremacy. Post World War 2, this continued with the development of new technologies such as the transistor and eventually the internet. Another example that strikes me that the author didn’t mention was the Space Race. As a history teacher, I had often taught this theme of how military needs can drive technology and how that technology developed for military purposes would often lead to better technology for the regular man and woman. While this can be true and often is, the author pointed out how this military driven mentality can hold back technology that would benefit society as a whole. This discovery was one of the most striking for me from the book.
Chapter 8 takes us more into the modern age with the idea of technology creating a more global society. Mass media, satellite relays of TV, and the internet all act to bring the world culture closer together. McDonalds spread world-wide was highlighted as an example. It reminded me of a college professor commenting in the early 90’s about how US cities had become so much the same, same restaurants, same stores to shop in, etc. Today that is being said about cities world-wide. The internet and its origins were also a focus of this chapter.
Chapter 9 honed in on some major problems technology has created and is yet to solve. Many new technologies still run on old sources of energy. Just think of how many things we now use that plug in and how they all still depend on the almost ancient technology of burning fossil fuels to produce that electricity. We’ve made a huge technological apparatus standing on the fragile and unsustainable base of fossil fuel electricity. This will have to be corrected or we are in for a nasty fall. Also the tremendous amount of information online creates tremendous security concerns. Two movies strike me for expressing these concerns: Enemy of the State from 1998 and The Net from 1995 both chronicle the dangers that powerful new technologies pose… and they are both more than a dozen years old. Far more happens online now then when these movies came out.
Chapter 10 summarizes the books and a few key concepts struck me. Technology has always been “shrinking” the world. From the Dutch traders, to steamships, to railroad, to telegraph lines, to fax machines, to the Internet, many of these technologies have sped up the time it takes to communicate and travel over greater distances. The factory system tied parts of the world closer together, first in forced ways through empires, and now through the global economy. The second key point that came out often throughout the book is how technology is both a force and a product of change. Back to the very beginning of my reflection where I commented how technology is a part of culture. However it is a unique part, as it can have such profound effects on the culture, while it can also be a result of cultural change. Sometimes it can be difficult to identify whether people changed resulting in new technologies, or if technology changed thus changing the people. Either way, whether for better or for worse, one fact stands above all - technology and culture always have been, are today, and will be in the future infinitely intertwined.
