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In this volume the authors translate and annotate key passages from ancient authors to provide a history and an analysis of the origins and development of technology. Among the topics covered are: * energy * basic mechanical devices * agriculture * food processing and diet * mining and metallurgy * construction and hydraulic engineering * household industry * transport and trade * military technology. The sourcebook presents 150 ancient authors and a diverse range of literary genres, such as, the encyclopedic Natural Histories of Pliny the Elder, the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle and Lucretius and the agricultural treatise of Varro. Humphrey, Oleson and Sherwood provide a comprehensive and accessible collection of rich and varied sources to illustrate and elucidate the beginnings of technology. Glossaries of technological terminology, indices of authors and subjects, introductions outlining the general significance of the evidence, notes to explain the specific details, and a recent bibliography make this volume a valuable research and teaching tool.
Covers power, conservation, and gear
David D. Kumar and Daryl E. Chubin We live in an information age. Technology abounds: information tech nology, communication technology, learning technology. As a once popular song went, "Something's happening here, but it's just not exactly clear." The world appears to be a smaller, less remote place. We live in it, but we are not necessarily closely tied to it. We lack a satisfactory understanding of it. So we are left with a paradox: In an information age, information alone will neither inform nor improve us as citizens nor our democracy, society, or in stitutions. No, improvement will take some effort. It is a heavy burden to be reflective, indeed analytical, and disciplined but only constructively constrained by different perspectives. The science-based technology that makes for the complexity, contro versy, and uncertainty of life sows the seeds of understanding in Science, Technology, and Society. STS, as it is known, encompasses a hybrid area of scholarship now nearly three decades old. As D. R. Sarewitz,a former geologist now congressional staffer and an author, put it After all, the important and often controversial policy dilemmas posed by issues such as nuclear energy, toxic waste disposal, global climate change, or biotech nology cannot be resolved by authoritative scientific knowledge; instead, they must involve a balancing of technical considerations with other criteria that are explicitly nonscientific: ethics, esthetics, equity, ideology. Trade-offs must be made in light of inevitable uncertainties (Sarewitz, 1996, p. 182).
Those committed to helping economically disadvantaged people in less developed communities will find all the information they need to provide basic needs such as water systems, food sources, medical supplies and anything else that enables a community to learn to sustain itself successfully.