Technology's Dilemma: Agricultural Colleges Between Science and Practice in Germany, 1860-1934

ISBN-13: 9783039102990 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 288 str.

Jonathan Harwood

Opis

In recent decades critics in several countries have complained that education in agriculture, engineering and medicine has drifted away from an earlier practical orientation, becoming increasingly irrelevant to actual needs. Since existing histories have surprisingly little to say about the causes of such academic drift, this book develops a model of institutional dynamics which explains why different institutions have evolved closer to the worlds of science or practice .
The model is based on a study of German agricultural colleges and the study surveys the evolution of the agricultural curriculum during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it swung back and forth between the poles of science and practice. It makes a comparative analysis of five colleges in the decades around 1900, some of them more science-oriented and others more practical, and follows the gradual transformation over half a century of two colleges in Bavaria which had to compete for recognition and funding. The wider relevance of these findings is also explored, not only for the history of agricultural education in the United States and Britain but also for engineering, medicine and management education, past and present."

Recenzje

«... the book offers a great deal for scholars interested in the history of agriculture, and the practical sciences more generally, as well as to those interested in educational policy.» (Suman Seth, Agricultural History)
«His treatment is a welcome addition to the history of agricultural educators and institutions. Harwood does a remarkable job of extracting a great deal of archival material over an impressive historical span.» (Sara Tjossem, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences)

Spis treści

Contents: Academic drift in higher technical education - Educational institutions within 'academic' and 'politico-economic fields' - The evolution of the agricultural curriculum, 1800-1934 - Science and practice at Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Halle, and Hohenheim around 1900 - Bavaria's colleges maneuver for position, 1872-1934.

O autorze

The Author: Jonathan Harwood was born in the United States and studied biology and sociology at Wesleyan (Connecticut), Harvard and Bristol Universities. He is the author of The Race Concept (1975, with Michael Banton), Styles of Scientific Thought: the German Genetics Community, 1900-1933 (1993) and a number of articles on the history of German science, biology, and plant-breeding. He is currently Reader in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Manchester (UK).