Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology -- strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.

Reviews of the 1st Edition:
."."..This book is a welcome addition to the sociology of technology, a field whose importance is increasingly recognised." "- Sociology

."."..sets a remarkably high standard in breadth of coverage, in scholarship, and in readability and can be recommended to the general reader and to the specialist alike."" - Science and Society

."."..This remarkably readable and well-edited anthology focuses, in a wide variety of concrete examples, not on the impacts of technologies on societies but in the reverse: how different social contexts shaped the emergence of...