Subject:
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Re: ?Question for LFB?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Thu, 29 Nov 2001 07:15:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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129 times
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(Objection re: placement of this noted, but I prefer to keep
it semi-public, if only for my performative ego.)
In lugnet.org.us, Richard Noeckel writes:
> Book related, not Lego related...
>
> Hi Lindsay, I've got a question for you…
> I was wounderin’ if you’ve ever read ‘Children of Prometheus’ –A history of
> science and Technology by James MacLachlan? (What did you think of it?)
>
> I quite liked the text, even though I found it a bit broad and generalized,
> I still greatly enjoy the narrative flow of the writing. (cause it was
> originally composed and broadcasted upon a Uni. Radio station.) And enjoyed
> the humor and associations drawn by the author.
My impression is that it's a good read, though deeply flawed.
He tells a good story, but he shows the stamp of postivist
chauvinism--the idea of necessary progress, teleological
technologism, and IIRC the shocking dismissal of other
cultures' science as somehow "unscientific." (China comes
to mind.) The format meant that Maclachlan had to operate
with certain blinders on his subject, and it's still classic
progress-oriented triumphal great-person history because that's
what a domestic audience is accustomed to.
But I haven't had the opportunity to skim through the book in
some 6 years or more--my reading now would probably be much
harsher, because I'm a "third-world"ist. (And no, I've never
had the urge to read it in depth, sorry.) But that doesn't
mean that Maclachlan's book is without value for the general
information and sense of things. If you want to see the basic
viewpoint laid out much more eloquently, take a look at David
Landes's venerable _The Unbound Prometheus_ (from which I'm
*convinced* Maclachlan took his title's inspiration)--he's
still operating in that same dated and Eurocentric paradigm,
but it's a grand old book that still appears on every History
of Technology reading list I've ever seen. (Maclachlan, on
the other hand, appears on zero.)
best
LFB
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: ?Question for LFB?
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| (...) I've got a History of Science (and Technology) in America reading list, and he's not on it. (: Could be that Eurocentric paradigm along with his subject, "Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the (...) (23 years ago, 29-Nov-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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