Technological Choices: Transformation in Material Cultures Since the Neolithic

ISBN-13: 9780415296441 / Angielski / Miękka / 2002 / 440 str.

P. Lemonnier; Pierre Lemonnier

Opis

Technological Choices deals with the adoption or rejection by a society of certain technological innovations. It demonstrates that in any society, such choices result from cultural values and social relations, rather than inherent benefits in the technology itself and highlights revolutionary viewpoint has crucial implications for current Western societies.
The book is based on case-studies covering a wide chronological and geographic span from Neolithic Europe to the modern industrial age, from the tribes of Papua New Guinea, India and North Africa to European peasant communities. The techniques studied range from the manufacture of stone implements to the development of high-tech transportation devices.
Technological Choices will be of great interest to students of archaeology and anthropology and the history of technology. It will also be valuable reading for economists and social historians.

Spis treści

Introduction: Pierre Lemonnier Chapter 1. North Wind, South Wind. Neolithic technical choices in the Jura Mountains, 3700-2400 BC, Pierre Petrequin Chapter 2. The Watch and the Waterclock. Technological choices/social choices, Genevieve Bedoucha Chapter 3. The Reindeerman's lasso, Tim Ingold Chapter 4. Pigs as Ordinary Wealth. Technical logic, exchange and leadership in New Guinea, Pierre Lemonnier Chapter 5. Pottery Techniques in India. Technical variants and social choice, Marie-Claude Mahias Chapter 6. Of Mills and Waterwheels. The hidden parameters of technological choices, Robert Cresswell Chapter 7. Technical Innovation and Cultural Resistance. The social weight of plowing in the vineyards of les Corbieres (Languedoc), Georges Guille-Escuret Chapter 8. The Hunter and his Gun in Haute-Provence, Nicolas Govoroff

O autorze

Pierre Lemonnier is a research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. His research team is the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie, in Marseille.