3 ms·
Lots of options out there. A few from my bookshelf: Bijker's "Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs" is a case-study-centric work that seeks to build a general theo
by HillRat 3y ago
Lots of options out there. A few from my bookshelf: Bijker's "Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs" is a case-study-centric work that seeks to build a general theory of STS. Nye's "Technology Matters" is less a work of theory than a critique that poses core questions about how society should seek to integrate technical advances. Latour's "Science in Action," "Reassembling the Social," and "Aramis" are great examples of his approach to whole-of-system analysis of sociotechnical systems. Rogers' "Diffusion of Innovation" is a classic work theorizing how innovation is communicated through social networks.
MIT Press has a wide variety of books that cover specific topics in history, most of which have great theoretic interest: Agar's "The Government Machine," dealing with the evolution of technology and expertise within the UK government; Medina's "Cybernetic Revolutionaries," about Beer's Cybersyn project; and Ensmenger's "The Computer Boys Take Over," about the cultural development of the "programmer," are all great reads.
Also, you can look beyond pure technology for interesting adjacencies: for example, Schatz's "The Genius of the System" describes how changes in technology and management production radically upended Hollywood, resulting in the studio system that dominated from the 1930s through the 1950s, while Harris' "Pictures at a Revolution" picks up the pieces at the end of that system, discussing the rise of "New Hollywood," driven by cultural and technical (particularly the French use of inexpensive filming technologies to create the New Wave) forces.