Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture

by Thomas P. Hughes

To most people, technology has been reduced to computers, consumer goods, and military weapons; we speak of "technological progress" in terms of RAM and CD-ROMs and the flatness of our television screens. In Human-Built World , thankfully, Thomas Hughes restores to technology the conceptual richness and depth it deserves by chronicling the ideas about technology expressed by influential Western thinkers who not only understood its multifaceted character but who also explored its creative potential.

Hughes draws on an enormous range of literature, art, and architecture to explore what technology has brought to society and culture, and to explain how we might begin to develop an "ecotechnology" that works with, not against, ecological systems. From the "Creator" model of development of the sixteenth century to the "big science" of the 1940s and 1950s to the architecture of Frank Gehry, Hughes nimbly charts the myriad ways that technology has been woven into the social and cultural fabric of different eras and the promises and problems it has offered. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, optimistically hoped that technology could be combined with nature to create an Edenic environment; Lewis Mumford, two centuries later, warned of the increasing mechanization of American life.

Such divergent views, Hughes shows, have existed side by side, demonstrating the fundamental idea that "in its variety, technology is full of contradictions, laden with human folly, saved by occasional benign deeds, and rich with unintended consequences." In Human-Built World , he offers the highly engaging history of these contradictions, follies, and consequences, a history that resurrects technology, rightfully, as more than gadgetry; it is in fact no less than an embodiment of human values.

Genres: History, Science, Technology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Social

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Full name: Thomas Parke Hughes.

Reviews

[Luke Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

My father's last book. A summary of his theories of technology and its influence on human culture with a call to arms for the public to become enmeshed in technological decision making.

[Galatea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short, dense book on the history of the idea of "technology" and the impact it's had on modern art, culture, and society. Absolutely well worth reading in its entirety, from the introduction to the bibliography.

Tech, from the humble everyday appliance to the flashy, soul-stealing machines that grab headlines, are a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Despite the task of drafting, designing, and manufacturing ultimately being a creative task, little attention is paid to anything non-technical (or non-financial) when it comes to tech.

Always running behind the scenes, the literal cogs in the machine turning in the background as ever more people and ever more things, ever more devices and ever more machines, are borne into the world to do...what, exactly? To prosper? To create? To colonize?

I'm not exactly sure what place the human-built occupies in the world, not just our world but the the world, but this book is a damn good introduction to thinking about these topics, and one I'll definitely be rereading several times over the years as I try to find my own answers to the questions this field has to offer.

Also, the bibliography is honestly the best I've seen anywhere, with short descriptions and recommendations of different books for each topic and sub-topic of every chapter throughout the book, making consultation, citations, and cross-referencing a breeze.

This is the product of a lifetime of study, and I'm thankful to have been able to savor it.

[David Lamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book for everyone who's been taken in by e social networking world like those of us in GoodReads. Hughes helps to paint the technology backdrop of the "human built world" in which we live. He begins with the first such world when coal-fired boilers created the Steam Age with its Industrial Revolution moving people to the sources of power and the machines that were run by it. This sense of power and control gave us the Victorian Age with its moralism, Utopianism, and mechanistic view of human systems. However, a second revolution was coming with the dawn of the Electrical Age. This second Industrial Revolution decentralized power, distributed people to the suburbs and gave us the view that everything was a switch, a rheostat of an electro-magnetic control panel. This affected our view of life again with stimulus-response behaviorism dominating our industrial management styles.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lucid literature review that covered an incredibly long time period. Hughes clearly defines technology at the beginning and also talks about the relatively recent adoption of the term. He goes on to describe the major philosophical and theoretical trends that characterize ideas about technology, both idealistic and pessimistic, overtime. Despite the fact that he has to work incredibly synthetically, he does not shy away from delving into important detail or harping at others judgmentally when necessary. As a result, this book is useful to nearly all readers, from those who have studied very little about technology to those whose expertise on a particular technology or era prevents them from fully or easily grasping the larger trends that characterize the phenomenon.

[Jim Stogdill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The money quote comes on the last page...

"A technologically literate public might reject technological determinism and accept the current social science argument that technology is malleable and subject to social control."

Meanwhile, in the world we live in, technological determinism remains the moral escape valve for any technology-driven outcome.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

school requirement. This author really, really wants the term "human-built" to become part of the vernacular. It's used on every page. Not worth my time, in class or out.

[Kylie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a history class I was taking. It really enlightened me by making me take a step back and see how much technology has affected human life.