David Edgerton: The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 (2008)

This first ever history of technology casts aside the usual stories of inventions and focuses instead on what people actually use. It reassesses the relationship of technology and society, using unrecognised examples such as Spanish synthetic petrol, Japanese rickshaws, American gas chambers, Soviet tractors and Turkish battleships.

We do not live in an era of ever increasing change, and the most important technologies of the twenty first century are often overlooked today. Drawing on political, economic and cultural history, The Shock of the Old dispels misplaced futurism and exemplifies a radical new way of looking at our world.

Publisher Profile Books Limited, 2008
ISBN 1861973063, 9781861973061
Length 272 pages

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