History of Technology Volume 3: Volume 3, 1978

Description

Technical standards have received increasing attention in recent years from historians of science and technology, management theorists and economists. Often, inquiry focuses on the emergence of stability, technical closure and culturally uniform modernity. Yet current literature also emphasizes the durability of localism, heterogeneity and user choice. This collection investigates the apparent tension between these trends using case studies from across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The History of Technology addresses tensions between material standards and process standards, explores the distinction between specifying standards and achieving convergence towards them, and examines some of the discontents generated by the reach of standards into 'everyday life'. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents Preface Technology in History Notes History of Technology in the Teaching of History History of technology and its contribution towards historical understanding History of technology as part of physical history What is the use of the history of technology? Summary Notes The Role of History in a Civil Engineering Course Notes Sir Proby Cautley (1802-1871), a Pioneer of Indian Irrigation The Doab Canal and the Dehra Dun Watercourses, 1825-1843 The Ganges Canal, 1842-1854 Notes Glossary of Indian names On Knowing, and Knowing how to Notes Vitruvius and the Elevated Aqueducts Vitruvius's qualifications as an authority on aqueducts Vitruvius's notes on elevated aqueducts Vitruvius and the earlier aqueduct traditions Vitruvius and the elevated aqueducts of the Romans Notes Two Problems in Fuel Technology Part I. The whale-oil crisis re-considered Part II. Pollution and progress Notes The Historical Development of Theories of Wave-Calming using Oil Introduction Antiquity The eighteenth century The beginnings of wave theory The Commission of the Royal Netherlands Institute, 1842 The development of theories involving surface tension The damping of progressive water waves The second revival of interest in wave-oiling, 1880-1900 The twentieth century — decline of interest The current picture Notes The Contributors