History of engineering and technology Books

Book SynopsisThe Ethics of Creativity illuminates the thorny issues that arise when novel creative ideas collide with what we believe to be 'right' or 'good'. This book tackles questions of when creativity and ethics tend to coincide and when conflict, and how both might be harnessed to support a brighter future for all.Table of Contents

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Book SynopsisHiromi Mizuno is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, USA. She is the author of Science for the Empire: Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan (2009).Aaron S. Moore is Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, USA. He is the author of Constructing East Asia: Technology, Ideology, and Empire in Japan's Wartime Era, 1931-1945 (2013).John DiMoia is Associate Professor of Korean History at Seoul National University, South Korea. He is the author of Reconstructing Bodies: Biomedicine, Health, and Nation-Building in South Korea since 1945 (2013).Trade Review[One] of the most important edited volumes to come out in recent memory … Engineering Asia represents a significant intervention in the history of science and technology, foreign relations, and economic nationalism in cold war Asia. It is essential reading for scholars and graduate students in Japanese and East Asian history ... Scholars of the postcolonial history of science and technology in Latin America, Africa, and Asia will find the volume equally thought provoking. * The Journal of Japanese Studies *Focusing on science and technology in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia– and in concrete rice, chemicals, highways, dams, oil, and more – this extraordinary collaboration provides a unique and critical perspective on both colonialism and its postcolonial reincarnation as Cold War developmentalism and overseas aid. While based upon meticulous empirical research, the book also provides sweeping insights into the intra-Asian connections among the major players that both depended upon and yet exceeded U.S. Cold War projects in the region. Sophisticated and yet eminently accessible, this is transnational history writing at its best and should be read by a wide audience both inside and outside of Asian Studies. * Takashi Fujitani, Professor in Asia-Pacific Studies, University of Toronto, Canada *Table of Contents1. Introduction: A Kula Ring for the Flying Geese: Japan's Technology Aid and Postwar Asia, Hiromi Mizuno (University of Minnesota, USA) Part 1: Engineering Asia at Home - Japan's Institutional Infrastructure for Asian Development 2. Tokyo's Vision of Southeast Asia: Private Interests and Economic Cooperation in the 1950s, Jin Sato (University of Tokyo, Japan) 3. Itagaki Yoichi and the Formation of the Postwar Knowledge Infrastructure for Japan's Overseas Development Assistance in Asia, Masato Karashima (Kobe University, Japan) Part 2: Engineering Asia on the Ground 4. From 'Constructing' to 'Developing' Asia: Japanese Engineers and the Formation of the Post-Colonial, Cold War Discourse of Development in Asia, Aaron S Moore (Arizona State University, USA) 5. The Hydrocarbon Ring: Indonesian Fossil Fuel, "Japanese Cooperation," and American Neo-Imperialism, 1941-1975, Eric Dinmore (Hampden-Sydney College, USA) 6. Colonial Seeds and Imperialist Genes: Japanese Colonial Agricultural Development and the Cold-War Green Revolution, Tatsushi Fujihara (Kyoto University, Japan) Part 3: South Korea - Engineering Asia as a Developing Nation 7. Postcolonial Desire and the Tripartite Alliance in East Asia: the Hybrid Origins of a Modern Scientific and Technological System in South Korea, Manyong Moon, (Chonbuk National University, South Korea) 8. Making Miracle Rice: Tongil and Mobilizing a Domestic “Green Revolution” in South Korea, Tae-ho Kim, (Chonbuk National University, South Korea) 9. In Pursuit of “Peace and Construction”: Hyundai Construction and Infrastructure in Southeast Asia, 1965-1973, John P DiMoia, (Seoul National University, South Korea)

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Book SynopsisThe recording studio, she argues, is at the center of musical culture in the twentieth century.Trade Review[ Chasing Sound] does more than traverse the technology of sound recordings: it provides a history on the evolution of sound recording, quality, and even popular music movements, and is a 'must' for any music history or music technology library. Midwest Book Review Chasing Sound is a welcome addition to a growing literature illuminating the history of sound recording... What makes the book unique are the author's interviews with dozens of engineers and producers. The voices of those who worked in the studios day in and day out enliven the rest of the book's narrative with a perspective born of practical experience. Journal of American History This 292-page hardbound book goes back to Edison's invention, moves through the electrical recording era and brings us to the end of the analog recording studio. -- Steve Ramm Anything Phonographic Schmidt Horning's excellent dissertation... provides us with valuable and well-founded information of the recording music business from its early beginnings until the rock music era. This book can be recommended to all not only interested in the technological development of sound recording, but also in the sociological change of the recording profession from the 1890s to the late 1960s. -- Peter Tschmuck Music Business Research Chasing Sound represents an indispensable and critical approach for historians of sound, one that is unafraid of reconfiguring the central players in a narrative as big as the history of recorded music. -- Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo Sounding Out! Schmidt Horning provides an insightful look into the conception and maturation of the recording industry and ways the continuing quest for improved sonic fidelity impacts popular music and Western culture. Susan Schmidt Horning's recent book, however, is a compelling exploration of a world largely hidden from view that has been shaped by scientists and recording engineers whom she calls tinkerers. More importantly, Chasing Sound is a vital contribution to sound studies that traces the shift from the aesthetic of live performance to the recorded object that has dominated the popular imagination for nearly a century... Moreover, Schmidt Horning attends to intricate detail but includes so much archival research that recordists, scientists, musicians, and others are humanized players in an important tale of American culture. Schmidt Horning cleverly unfolds this unique history while underscoring the significant accomplishments that they wrought. -- Kathryn Metz ARSC Journal (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) An engaging and colorful narrative about the evolution of a profession. -- Andre Millard American Historical Review This book is rich in detail and analysis, resulting from years devoted to researching into archives and collecting interviews (as well as Schmidt Horning's knowledge of the trade as a musician herself). -- Simone Turchetti British Journal for the History of Science Meticulously researched... -- Steve Savage Journal on the Art of Record Production Chasing Sound is a masterful accomplishment. It offers a crucial addition to the burgeoning scholarship on sound and recording and holds significant value for students and scholars of labor, technology, and popular culture in the twentieth-century United States. With a sharp eye and keen ear, Susan Schmidt Horning gives us that rarest of treasures: a book that succeeds equally well as sophisticated analysis and engrossing narrative. It is highly recommended. -- Charles L. Hughes History: Reviews of New Books Schmidt Horning provides a diligent and thoughtful contribution to the history of the recording industry... A valuable addition to the body of scholarship on the recording industry... Marvel at the intricacy of the art, the miracle that we can preserve and retrieve sounds from decades ago, and appreciate the individuals who worked so thanklessly for the love of the music. The Journal of Popular Culture A well-written, fascinating account of the multiple shifts and changes in studio recording--from the art of capturing a live performance to the art of engineering an illusion and the concomitant reversal of the historical relationship between live and recorded music. Isis Recording technology is at the heart of Chasing Sound, Horning has made it user-friendly for those without extensive technical backgrounds, and she draws attention to matters easily overlooked by specialists... A welcoming introduction to the history of musical recording. Technology and Culture Schmidt has gone above and beyond the call of duty. By letting more than 80 deffent types of stinging incets jab him, he has developed a "pain index" for each sting... His descriptions of the pain are wry and eloquent. ScienceTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Capturing Sound in the Acoustic Era2. The Studio Electrifies3. A Passion for Sound4. When High Fidelity Was New5. Control Men in Technological Transition6. The Search for the Sound7. Channeling SoundConclusionNotesEssay on SourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisRees shows that how we obtain and preserve perishable food is related to our changing relationship with the natural world.Trade ReviewA smart and illuminating book that will be of great interest to anyone engaged with either the history of technology or the history of food. American Historical Review Rees has written an entertaining, well-narrated, and well-researched book about building one root infrastructure of modern food systems. He brings this infrastructure to the foreground of U.S. history, and hopefully the book will reach a broad readership, both within history departments and a public with an interest in the intersections of the histories of food, business, and technology. Business History Refrigeration Nation is a well-written and useful book for both scholars and students... Rees presents a well-developed account of the importance of American enterprise and innovation in the national and global marketplace. History: Reviews of New Books A fascinating book. Heritage Radio Refrigeration Nation is a valuable, well-researched study, but it also suggests the need for more work on a subject that at first seems mundane and taken for granted but, upon greater inspection, is really quite fascinating and compelling. Journal of American Culture Jonathan Rees provides us a good history of the ice industry, cold chains, cold storage, refrigerated transport, and mechanical refrigeration in this valuable book. Biz India Magazine [Rees] delves into the very infrastructure of ice-making, chronicling the engineering feats, describing the machinery of temperature control, and a particularly appealing exploration of human ingenuity that has made refrigerated food the norm in American homes. Food, Culture, and Society Nowhere else can one find such rich information on everything from ice boxes to home freezers to refrigerated container ships... A most welcome contribution to our understanding of how Americans came to expect cold drinks, unpickled produce, and unsalted meats as a matter of course. -- Shane Hamilton Agricultural History Nowhere else can one find such rich information on everything from ice boxes to home freezers to refrigerated container ships... A most welcome contribution to our understanding of how Americans came to expect cold drinks, unpickled produce, and unsalted meats as a matter of course. Agricultural HistoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Inventing the Cold Chain2. The Long Wait for Mechanical Refrigeration3. The Decline of the Natural Ice Industry4. Refrigerated Transport Near and Far5. The Pleasures and Perils of Cold Storage6. "Who Ever Heard of an American without an Icebox?"7. The Early Days of Electric Household Refrigeration8. The Completion of the Modern Cold ChainConclusionNotesEssay on SourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisIn the Wake of the Compendia examines the composition of technical literature in the ancient Semitic-speaking world. This volume offers new perspectives on the early history of these compendia and their subsequent transmission into later post-cuneiform compilations, curricula, and scholarly writings.

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Book SynopsisIn "Jet Age", journalist Sam Howe Verhovek explores the advent of the first generation of jet airliners and the people who designed, built, and flew them. The path to jet travel was triumphal and amazingly rapid-less than fifty years after the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, Great Britain led the world with the first commercial jet plane service. Yet the pioneering British Comet was cursed with a tragic, mysterious flaw, and an upstart Seattle company put a new competitor in the sky: the Boeing 707 Jet Stratoliner. "Jet Age" vividly re-creates the race between two nations, two global airlines, and two rival teams of brilliant engineers for bragging rights to the first jet service across the Atlantic Ocean in 1958. In the spirit of Stephen Ambrose's "Nothing Like It in the World", Verhovek's "Jet Age" offers a gorgeous rendering of an exciting age and fascinating technology that permanently changed our conception of distance and time.Trade Review"Breezy and fact-filled history...Mr. Verhovek spins a fine yarn that includes big money, war, sex and power." — The Wall Street Journal"Jet Age is a page-turning detective story with characters as finely drawn as those in a work of fiction, and infused with an infectious sense of wonder that drove ordinary men and women to reach for extraordinary heights." — The New York Times

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Book SynopsisScience and technology are the most potent influences driving the modern world. Most science is done in laboratories but, apart from a generalized image of an anonymous building populated by white-coated figures, few people outside the sciences have any idea how such places come into existence or how they work. This memoir approaches both issues from the author's personal experience. Peter Day's career took him to many countries and laboratories, including the Royal Institution in London, arguably the oldest continuously operating laboratory in the world - and, of course, much else besides. He looks at a selection of these places through the eyes of an 'incomer', trying to understand how they came into being and what makes them tick. He was the first member of his family to go to university and introductory chapters sketch his early life in a small Kentish village and tortuous route into science, along with vignettes of Oxford 50 years ago, a long-lost world. Laboratories, like most other human constructs, are brought into being through the ambition and hubris of individuals, kept going by intellect and sharp elbows, and sometimes brought low by blind egoism. This book shares examples of all these traits of humanity, observed, if not by an outsider then certainly by an incomer. Peter Day is an internationally recognised materials chemist who has received numerous honorary Fellowships, degrees and Academy memberships. From a small village in Kent, his career took him to Oxford and industrial research laboratories in the USA, followed by Directorship of a European institute in France and the Royal Institution in London. As well as many technical papers he has published books and articles about the practise of science, people who carry it out and organisations where it is done.Trade Review'This is the kind of book - an unassuming, informative, and entertaining memoir that ranges over personal, scientific, and administrative matters - that I think more of you should be writing. The book costs less than $20, and can be read on a long train trip. A historian will find many details about the grain of today's scientific life that are usually passed over in more formal or ambitious histories and biographies. We could use many more tales from the cucumber tree like this one.' Robert P. Crease, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Stony Brook University, New York. 'That Day almost chose arts instead of science at school shows in this elegantly written view of the influences on science and scientists in the later 20th century.' Derry Jones, Chemistry World, August 2012 'a wide-ranging and entertaining life story.' TW Magazine, 2013

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