
Leonardo to the Internet
Technology and Culture from the Renaissance to the Present
Thomas J. Misa(Author)
Johns Hopkins University Press
3rd Edition
Published on 19. April 2022
Book
Hardback
448 pages
978-1-4214-4309-6 (ISBN)
Description
Now updated - A comprehensive, 500-year history of technology in society.
Historian Thomas J. Misa's sweeping history of the relationship between technology and society over the past 500 years reveals how technological innovations have shaped-and have been shaped by-the cultures in which they arose. Spanning the preindustrial past, the age of scientific, political, and industrial revolutions, as well as the more recent eras of imperialism, modernism, and global security, this compelling work evaluates what Misa calls "the question of technology."
In this edition, Misa brings his acclaimed text up to date by drawing on current scholarship while retaining sharply drawn portraits of individual people, artifacts, and systems. Each chapter has been honed to relate to contemporary concerns. Globalization, Misa argues, looks differently considering today's virulent nationalism, cultural chauvinism, and trade wars. A new chapter focuses on the digital age from 1990 to 2016. The book also examines how today's unsustainable energy systems, insecure information networks, and vulnerable global shipping have helped foster geopolitical risks and instability and takes a look at the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of Wuhan, China's high-tech district.
A masterful analysis of how technology and culture have influenced each other over five centuries, Leonardo to the Internet frames a history that illuminates modern-day problems and prospects faced by our technology-dependent world.
Historian Thomas J. Misa's sweeping history of the relationship between technology and society over the past 500 years reveals how technological innovations have shaped-and have been shaped by-the cultures in which they arose. Spanning the preindustrial past, the age of scientific, political, and industrial revolutions, as well as the more recent eras of imperialism, modernism, and global security, this compelling work evaluates what Misa calls "the question of technology."
In this edition, Misa brings his acclaimed text up to date by drawing on current scholarship while retaining sharply drawn portraits of individual people, artifacts, and systems. Each chapter has been honed to relate to contemporary concerns. Globalization, Misa argues, looks differently considering today's virulent nationalism, cultural chauvinism, and trade wars. A new chapter focuses on the digital age from 1990 to 2016. The book also examines how today's unsustainable energy systems, insecure information networks, and vulnerable global shipping have helped foster geopolitical risks and instability and takes a look at the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of Wuhan, China's high-tech district.
A masterful analysis of how technology and culture have influenced each other over five centuries, Leonardo to the Internet frames a history that illuminates modern-day problems and prospects faced by our technology-dependent world.
Reviews / Votes
This book is indispensable and exciting reading for both scholars and a wider audience.-Emanuela Scarpellini, Technology & Culture
More details
Series
Edition
third edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore, MD
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Edition type
Revised edition
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
28 s/w Abbildungen, 32 s/w Abbildungen
32 Illustrations, black and white; 28 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
774 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4214-4309-6 (9781421443096)
DOI
10.56021/9781421443119
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2022
3rd Edition
Johns Hopkins University Press
€33.99
Available for download

Book
04/2022
3rd Edition
Johns Hopkins University Press
€36.50
Article not available at the moment
Previous edition

Book
09/2011
2nd Edition
Johns Hopkins University Press
€59.42
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Thomas J. Misa is the author or coauthor of many books, including A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925 and FastLane: Managing Science in the Internet World.
Content
List of Figures and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Technologies of the Court, 1450-1600
Chapter 2. Techniques of Commerce, 1588-1740
Chapter 3. Geographies of Industry, 1740-1851
Chapter 4. Instruments of Empire, 1840-1914
Chapter 5. Science and Systems, 1870-1930
Chapter 6. Materials of Modernism, 1900-1950
Chapter 7. The Means of Destruction, 1936-1990
Chapter 8. Promises of Global Culture, 1970-2001
Chapter 9. Paths to Insecurity, 2001-2010
Chapter 10. Dominance of the Digital, 1990-2016
Chapter 11. The Question of Technology
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Technologies of the Court, 1450-1600
Chapter 2. Techniques of Commerce, 1588-1740
Chapter 3. Geographies of Industry, 1740-1851
Chapter 4. Instruments of Empire, 1840-1914
Chapter 5. Science and Systems, 1870-1930
Chapter 6. Materials of Modernism, 1900-1950
Chapter 7. The Means of Destruction, 1936-1990
Chapter 8. Promises of Global Culture, 1970-2001
Chapter 9. Paths to Insecurity, 2001-2010
Chapter 10. Dominance of the Digital, 1990-2016
Chapter 11. The Question of Technology
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index