By Jeffrey T. Schnapp (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) On an April evening in Florence in 1934, before 20,000 spectators, the mass spectacle 18BL was presented, involving 2000 amateur actors, an air squadron, one infantry and cavalry brigade, fifty trucks, four field and machine gun batteries, ten field-radio stations and six photoelectric units. However titantic its scale, … Continued
By Timothy D. Taylor (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) In Strange Sounds, Timothy D. Taylor explains the wonder and anxiety provoked by a technological revolution that began in the 1940s and gathers steam daily. Taylor discusses the ultural role of technology, its use in making music, and the inevitable concerns about "authenticity" that arise from electronic music. Informative … Continued
By Edward V. Williams (NHC Fellow, 1980–81) This generously illustrated book records the story of Russia’s bells — the thousands of awe inspiring instruments that gave voice to the visual splendors of Russian Orthodoxy and to the political aspirations of the tsars.
By Eric G. Wilson (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) The Melancholy Android is a psychological study of the impulses behind the creation of androids. Exploring three imaginative figures—the mummy, the golem, and the automaton—and their appearances in myth, religion, literature, and film, Eric G. Wilson tracks the development of android-building and examines the lure of artificial doubles untroubled … Continued
By Henry Petroski (NHC Fellow, 1987–88) Henry Petroski traces the origins of the pencil back to ancient Greece and Rome, writes factually and charmingly about its development over the centuries and around the world, and shows what the pencil can teach us about engineering and technology today.
By Robert W. Smith (NHC Fellow, 1992–93), Robert H. Kargon, and Joseph N. Tatarewicz Robert Smith's The Space Telescope sets the fascinating and disturbing history of this massive venture within the context of 'Big Science'. Launched at a cost of no more than $2 billion, the Space Telescope turned out to be seriously flawed by … Continued
By John D. Wong (NHC Fellow, 2021–22) Commercial aviation took shape in Hong Kong as the city developed into a powerful economy. Rather than accepting air travel as an inevitability in the era of global mobility, John Wong argues that Hong Kong’s development into a regional and global airline hub was not preordained. By underscoring the shifting … Continued
Edited by Mar Hicks (NHC Fellow, 2018–19), Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, and Kavita Philip This book sounds an alarm: after decades of being lulled into complacency by narratives of technological utopianism and neutrality, people are waking up to the large-scale consequences of Silicon Valley–led technophilia. This book trains a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, … Continued
Edited by Orville Vernon Burton (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) A lively, hands-on introduction for teachers and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, this book-and-CD package will inspire even the faint-hearted to take the technological bull by the horns and make efficient, informed use of computer and Internet resources. New technology is changing the very nature … Continued
By William Barrett (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) Traces the development of philosophical thought from the seventeenth century to today, and explores why questions of the soul figure so little in the minds of present-day technocratic intellectuals.