David Alan Grier: Too Soon to Tell: Essays for the End of the Computer Revolution (2009)

Based on author David A. Grier’s column “In Our Time,” which runs monthly in Computer magazine, Too Soon To Tell presents a collection of essays skillfully written about the computer age, an era that began February 1946. Examining ideas that are both contemporary and timeless, these chronological essays examine the revolutionary nature of the computer, the relation between machines and human institutions, and the connections between fathers and sons to provide general readers with a picture of a specific technology that attempted to rebuild human institutions in its own image.

Publisher Wiley-IEEE, 2009
ISBN 0470080353, 9780470080351
238 pages

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Wolfgang Lefèvre (ed.): Picturing Machines 1400-1700 (2004)

“Technical drawings by the architects and engineers of the Renaissance made use of a range of new methods of graphic representation. These drawings—among them Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawings of mechanical devices—have long been studied for their aesthetic qualities and technological ingenuity, but their significance for the architects and engineers themselves is seldom considered. The essays in Picturing Machines 1400-1700 take this alternate perspective and look at how drawing shaped the practice of early modern engineering. They do so through detailed investigations of specific images, looking at over 100 that range from sketches to perspective views to thoroughly constructed projections.

In early modern engineering practice, drawings were not merely visualizations of ideas but acted as models that shaped ideas. Picturing Machines establishes basic categories for the origins, purposes, functions, and contexts of early modern engineering illustrations, then treats a series of topics that not only focus on the way drawings became an indispensable means of engineering but also reflect the main stages in their historical development. The authors examine the social interaction conveyed by early machine images and their function as communication between practitioners; the knowledge either conveyed or presupposed by technical drawings, as seen in those of Giorgio Martini and Leonardo; drawings that required familiarity with geometry or geometric optics, including the development of architectural plans; and technical illustrations that bridged the gap between practical and theoretical mechanics.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2004
ISBN 0262122693, 9780262122696
347 pages

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Helaine Selin (ed.): Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures (1997)

Here, at last, is the massively updated and augmented second edition of this landmark encyclopedia. The electronic version of this two-volume work contains approximately 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe.

The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics adorned with full color pictures. This unique reference work includes intercultural articles on broad topics such as mathematics and astronomy as well as thoughtful philosophical articles on concepts and ideas related to the study of non-Western Science, such as rationality, objectivity, and method.

You’ll also find material on religion and science, East and West, and magic and science. This amazing resource even contains entries on fascinating esoteric topics such as Native American mathematics, Polynesian navigation, and African Metallurgy.There are also biographical articles for those cultures where individual scientists are known to us, such as China and the Islamic world.

Publisher Springer, 1997
ISBN 0792340663, 9780792340669
Length 1117 pages

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