Description
Book SynopsisIn this volume, Caron brings together the different facets of his expertise in order to present a broad panorama of modern technology. Caron shows how artisanal know-how was adapted, expanded, and formalized during the three industrial revolutions that swept over Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States...
Trade Review “…offers a series of fascinating vignettes tied together by a satisfactory thesis about the commonalities associated with the evolving nature of technological innovation.” • The Historian
“To integrate the slow evolution of medieval know-how and the current explosion of information technologies into one analysis is a challenge magnificently met by the historian François Caron.” • Gerard Moatti, Les Echos.
Table of Contents Translator’s Preface
Introduction
PART ONE
Chapter 1. The Artisanal Mode of Knowledge
Industrial Framework: The World of Trades
Artisanal Knowledge and the Arc of Experience
The Interaction of Trades
Circulation of Knowledge
Chapter 2. From Artisan to Expert
The Appropriation of Artisanal Knowledge
The Role of Writing
Knowledge of Experts
Chapter 3. Formalized Knowledge
The Professional Engineer
The Industrial Enterprise
Science and Utility: The Other Revolution
Practice and Theory
Chapter 4. Technological Adventures
The Production of Energy
The Mechanization of Industry
Birth of the Mechanical Industry
The Chemical Industry
PART TWO
Chapter 5. Industrial Logic and the Dynamics of Knowledge
Entrepreneurs and Enterprises
Artisanal Trades and the Formalization of Knowledge
Engineers and Engineering
Three Examples of Engineering Science
Science, the Universities, and the State
Chapter 6. Steam Engines
Domination of Empirical Knowledge Before 1850
The Birth of Thermodynamics
Experimental Thermodynamics
The Conquest of Great Efficiency
The End of an Era
Chapter 7. The Chemical Industry
Organic Chemistry and the Dye Industry before 1900
Physical Chemistry and the Second Industrial Revolution
Macromolecular Chemistry and Vertical Integration
Summing Up Chemistry
PART THREE
Chapter 8. Technological Interdependence and Consumer Needs
Iron Metallurgy in France in the Nineteenth Century
Generalizing the Model
Chapter 9. Strategies and Social Networks
Global Communities: Gas, Electricity, Automobiles
Social Groups
Enterprises and Networks
The Pillars of Innovation
Local Productive Systems
PART FOUR
Chapter 10. From Early Modern Times to the 1880s
The English Model
The Rise of Mass Civilization in Paris, 1830-1880
Chapter 11. Technological Networks and Communications
French Railways: Rationalization and Cybernetics
Interconnections: Networks of Electricity
Mass Consumption
Mass Production
The Rise of Communications
Telecommunications
The Birth of a Communications Society
Chapter 12. From Microprocessors to the Internet
Flexible Production
Telecommunications
Information and Audiovisual Technologies
Computer Networks and the Birth of the Internet
Communications of a Large Network: the SNCF
The Social Life of Networks, 1995-2008
Chapter 13. Information Technology and Society
Enterprises
Objects of Daily Life
The Era of the Internet and Cellular Phones
The Nature of Messages
Social Connections
The Unforeseen Outcome
Conclusion
Bibliography
Name Index
