{"product_id":"a-culture-of-improvement-technology-and-the-western-millennium-9780262514019","title":"A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium","description":"\u003cp\u003eHow technological change in the West has been driven by the pursuit of improvement: a history of technology  from plows and printing presses to penicillin  the atomic bomb  and the computer. Why does technology change over time  how does it change  and what difference does it make? In this sweeping  ambitious look at a thousand years of Western experience  Robert Friedel argues that technological change comes largely through the pursuit of improvementthe deep-rooted belief that things could be done in a better way. What Friedel calls the \"culture of improvement\" is manifested every day in the ways people carry out their tasks in lifefrom tilling fields and raising children to waging war. Improvements can be ephemeral or lasting  and one persons improvement may not always be viewed as such by others. Friedel stresses the social processes by which we define what improvements are and decide which improvements will last and which will not. These processes  he emphasizes  have created both winners and losers in history. Friedel presents a series of narratives of Western technology that begin in the eleventh century and stretch into the twenty-first. Familiar figures from the history of invention are joined by othersthe Italian preacher who described the first eyeglasses  the dairywomen displaced from their control over cheesemaking  and the little-known engineer who first suggested a grand tower to Gustav Eiffel. Friedel traces technology from the plow and the printing press to the internal combustion engine  the transistor  and the space shuttle. Friedel also reminds us that faith in improvement can sometimes have horrific consequences  as improved weaponry makes warfare ever more deadly and the drive for improving human beings can lead to eugenics and even genocide. The most comprehensive attempt to tell the story of Western technology in many years  engagingly written and lavishly illustrated  A Culture of Improvement documents the ways in which the drive for improvement has shaped our modern world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45965881770037,"sku":"ByrdShop_026251401X","price":30.91,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780262514019.jpg?v=1788371949","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/a-culture-of-improvement-technology-and-the-western-millennium-9780262514019","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}