{"title":"Robert Friedel","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"culture-of-improvement-book-robert-friedel-9780262514019","title":"A Culture of Improvement","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow technological change in the West has been driven by the pursuit of improvement: a history of technology, from plows and printing presses to penicillin, the atomic bomb, and the computer.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy does technology change over time, how does it change, and what difference does it make? In this sweeping, ambitious look at a thousand years of Western experience, Robert Friedel argues that technological change comes largely through the pursuit of improvement--the deep-rooted belief that things could be done in a better way. What Friedel calls the culture of improvement is manifested every day in the ways people carry out their tasks in life--from tilling fields and raising children to waging war.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eImprovements can be ephemeral or lasting, and one person's improvement may not always be viewed as such by others. Friedel stresses the social processes by which we define what improvements are and decide which improvements will last and which will not. These processes, he emphasizes, have created both winners and losers in history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFriedel presents a series of narratives of Western technology that begin in the eleventh century and stretch into the twenty-first. Familiar figures from the history of invention are joined by others--the Italian preacher who described the first eyeglasses, the dairywomen displaced from their control over cheesemaking, and the little-known engineer who first suggested a grand tower to Gustav Eiffel. Friedel traces technology from the plow and the printing press to the internal combustion engine, the transistor, and the space shuttle. Friedel also reminds us that faith in improvement can sometimes have horrific consequences, as improved weaponry makes warfare ever more deadly and the drive for improving human beings can lead to eugenics and even genocide. The most comprehensive attempt to tell the story of Western technology in many years, engagingly written and lavishly illustrated, \u003ci\u003eA Culture of Improvement \u003c\/i\u003edocuments the ways in which the drive for improvement has shaped our modern world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50173014507793,"sku":"CIN026251401XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50789335367953,"sku":"GOR009876720","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/026251401X.jpg?v=1786109349"},{"product_id":"edison-s-electric-light-book-robert-friedel-9780801894824","title":"Edison's Electric Light","description":"Revised and updated from the original 1986 edition, this definitive study of the most famous invention of America's most famous inventor is completely keyed to the printed and electronic versions of the Edison Papers, inviting the reader to explore further the remarkable original sources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50330725777681,"sku":"CIN0801894824G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416394858769,"sku":"CIN0801894824VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51797424439569,"sku":"GOR009273177","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801894824.jpg?v=1786105283"},{"product_id":"culture-of-improvement-book-robert-friedel-9780262062626","title":"A Culture of Improvement","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow technological change in the West has been driven by the pursuit of improvement: a history of technology, from plows and printing presses to penicillin, the atomic bomb, and the computer.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy does technology change over time, how does it change, and what difference does it make? In this sweeping, ambitious look at a thousand years of Western experience, Robert Friedel argues that technological change comes largely through the pursuit of improvement--the deep-rooted belief that things could be done in a better way. What Friedel calls the culture of improvement is manifested every day in the ways people carry out their tasks in life--from tilling fields and raising children to waging war.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eImprovements can be ephemeral or lasting, and one person's improvement may not always be viewed as such by others. Friedel stresses the social processes by which we define what improvements are and decide which improvements will last and which will not. These processes, he emphasizes, have created both winners and losers in history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFriedel presents a series of narratives of Western technology that begin in the eleventh century and stretch into the twenty-first. Familiar figures from the history of invention are joined by others--the Italian preacher who described the first eyeglasses, the dairywomen displaced from their control over cheesemaking, and the little-known engineer who first suggested a grand tower to Gustav Eiffel. Friedel traces technology from the plow and the printing press to the internal combustion engine, the transistor, and the space shuttle. Friedel also reminds us that faith in improvement can sometimes have horrific consequences, as improved weaponry makes warfare ever more deadly and the drive for improving human beings can lead to eugenics and even genocide. 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It surveys the vast array of materials and \"stuffs\" that make up our modern environment, and reveals how these substances have changed due to a complex set of factors ranging from shifting resource availability and new methods of synthesis, to swings in taste, fashion, and social psychology. It traces the changing substance of American artifacts from predominantly natural elements such as wood, clay and stone, to manufactured substances such as steel, to those whose creation entails complex chemical processesóspecialty alloys, celluloids, reinforced resins and artificial polymers.\u003cbr\u003e Robert Friedel's book examines a number of human accomplishments such as the fabulous cable span of the George Washington Bridge and the evolution of the automobile, always placing them in a historical and technological context. It gently enquires about our synthetic world, about what our striving for constant novelty and artifice says about our most basic values. \u003ci\u003eA Material World\u003c\/i\u003e is a provoking study of how material choices reflect not only current economics and the state of technology, but also subjective matters of status and cultural value. It shows that the history of these evolving substances is an inseparable and integral part of the shaping of the modern technological, social and political world.\u003c\/p\u003e out our synthetic world, about what our striving for constant novelty and artifice says about our most basic values. \u003ci\u003eA Material World\u003c\/i\u003e is a provoking study of how material choices reflect not only current economics and the state of technology, but also subjective matters of status and cultural value. It shows that the history of these evolving substances is an inseparable and integral part of the shaping of the modern technological, social and political world.out our synthetic world, about what our striving for constant novelty and artifice says about our most basic values. \u003ci\u003eA Material World\u003c\/i\u003e is a provoking study of how material choices reflect not only current economics and the state of technology, but also subjective matters of status and cultural value. It shows that the history of these evolving substances is an inseparable and integral part of the shaping of the modern technological, social and political world.out our synthetic world, about what our striving for constant novelty and artifice says about our most basic values. \u003ci\u003eA Material World\u003c\/i\u003e is a provoking study of how material choices reflect not only current economics and the state of technology, but also subjective matters of status and cultural value. It shows that the history of these evolving substances is an inseparable and integral part of the shaping of the modern technological, social and political world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521773101329,"sku":"NLS9780802600233","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780802600233.jpg?v=1778455597"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-robert-friedel.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}