Francis Spufford: Red Plenty: Inside the Fifties’ Soviet Dream (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · 1950s, 1960s, communism, cybernetics, economy, engineering, history of computing, mathematics, politics, science, soviet union
This book is about the moment in the mid-20th century when people believed that the state-owned Soviet economy might genuinely outdo the market, and produce a world of rich communists and envious capitalists. Specifically, it’s about the last and cleverest version of the idea – central planning via cybernetics – and about how and why, in the 1960s, it failed. To give the economics some human depth, Red Plenty generates a miniature Soviet Union on the page, peopled by scientists and politicians, fixers and managers, dreamers and cynics.
Publisher Faber & Faber, 2010
ISBN 0571269478, 9780571269471
356 pages
EPUB (updated on 2019-11-20)
See also:
Red Plenty Platforms, essay by Nick Dyer-Witheford, Culture Machine 14, 2013
Red Plenty: A Crooked Timber, collection of essays inspired by the book, 2012
Edoardo Rovida: Machines and Signs: A History of the Drawing of Machines (2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · drawing, engineering, geometry, history of science, machine, mechanics, science, technology
“This volume addresses the cultural, technical and ethical motivations of the history of drawing of machines and its developments step by step. First it treats drawings without any technical character; then the Renaissance with its new forms of drawing; the 18th century, with orthographic projections, immediately used by industry; the 19th century, including the applications of drawing in industry; and the 20th century, with the standardization institutions and the use of the computer. The role of historical drawings and archives in modern design is also examined.
This book is of value to all those who are interested in technical drawing, either from an artistic, from a design, or from an engineering point of view.”
Publiher Springer, 2013
Volume 17 of History of Mechanism and Machine Science series
ISBN 9400754078, 9789400754072
247 pages
Takehiko Hashimoto: Historical Essays on Japanese Technology (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · clock, engineering, history of science, history of technology, japan, science, technology
A collection of papers the author published from 1992 to 2008 on a variety of topics about the history of Japanese technology, from the end of the Edo period to the present.
Publisher The University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy
Collection UTCP series, Vol. 6
ISSN 1881-7637
213 pages