Technology in Postwar America: A History

ISBN-10: 0231511892
ISBN-13: 9780231511896
Category: Technology & Engineering
Pages: 320
Language: English
Published: 2007-06-29
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Author: Carroll Pursell

Description

Carroll Pursell tells the story of the evolution of American technology since World War II. His fascinating and surprising history links pop culture icons with landmarks in technological innovation and shows how postwar politics left their mark on everything from television, automobiles, and genetically engineered crops to contraceptives, Tupperware, and the Veg-O-Matic. Just as America's domestic and international policies became inextricably linked during the Cold War, so did the nation's public and private technologies. The spread of the suburbs fed into demands for an interstate highway system, which itself became implicated in urban renewal projects. Fear of slipping into a postwar economic depression was offset by the creation of "a consumers' republic" in which buying and using consumer goods became the ultimate act of citizenship and a symbol of an "American Way of Life." Pursell begins with the events of World War II and the increasing belief that technological progress and the science that supported it held the key to a stronger, richer, and happier America. He looks at the effect of returning American servicemen and servicewomen and the Marshall Plan, which sought to integrate Western Europe into America's economic, business, and technological structure. He considers the accumulating "problems" associated with American technological supremacy, which, by the end of the 1960s, led to a crisis of confidence. Pursell concludes with an analysis of how consumer technologies create a cultural understanding that makes political technologies acceptable and even seem inevitable, while those same political technologies provide both form and content for the technologies found at home and at work. By understanding this history, Pursell hopes to advance a better understanding of the postwar American self.

Get the book

Similar books

Animal Sciences: The Biology, Care, and Production of Domestic Animals, Fourth Edition
By John R. Campbell, M. Douglas Kenealy, Karen L. Campbell
Timberlake claimed in 1980 that a fundamental problem with Singer's work is the lack of an adequate definition of suffering ...
Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate
By Laura Lengnick
3. D. Layne. 2013. Tree Fruit: Protecting Your Investment. American/Western Fruit Grower, September/October. 4. R. Snyder and J. Melu-Abreu. 2005. Frost ...
Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies
By Stefanos Zenios, Josh Makower, Paul Yock
At that time, these were in the low $10s of millions. ... be a good partner going forward, even though it takes longer to get the deal done," offered Chess.
Advanced Signal Processing: A Concise Guide
By Amir-Homayoon Najmi, Todd Moon
[ 59 ] S. Kotz , T. J. Kozubowski , and K. Podgorski , The Laplace ... valued signal processing : The proper way to deal with impropriety , ” IEEE Trans .
Resources for Technical Communication
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, David P Pearson Education
Some documents are annotated; some are left without annotations to provide more flexibility for instructors. This booklet can be packaged at no additional cost with any Longman title in technical communication.
Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry; Chemistry Study Pack Version 2.0 CD-ROM; The Chemistry of Life CD-ROM;...
By Karen C. Timberlake
Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry; Chemistry Study Pack Version 2.0 CD-ROM; The Chemistry of Life CD-ROM;...
Poultry Science: Fifth Edition
By Colin G. Scanes, Karen D. Christensen
The emission rates for ammonia (Casey et al., 2006): • Layers: 116 g NH3 per AU (AU or animal unit or 500 kg). • Broilers: 135 g NH3 per AU (AU or animal unit or 500 kg). Emission rates in different reports vary from less than either 10 ...
Solid State Materials Chemistry
By Patrick M. Woodward, Pavel Karen, John S. O. Evans
[45] B.F. Hoskins, R. Robson, “Design and construction of a new class of scaffolding-like materials comprising infinite polymeric frameworks of 3D-linked molecular rods. A reappraisal of the zinc cyanide and cadmium cyanide structures ...
Abbreviations Dictionary
By Dean A. Stahl, Karen Landen
... Tallest Mountain Mount Robson—12,972 feet or 3,954 meters—in the Canadian Rockies Canada's Westernmost City Dawson, Yukon Canada's Westernmost Point in Yukon Territory just east of Alaska's Demarcation Point Canary Islands' Largest ...
Agriculture: A Very Short Introduction
By Paul Brassley, Richard Soffe
ACCOUNTING Christopher Nobes ADVERTISING Winston Fletcher AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION Eddie S. Glaude Jr AFRICAN HISTORY ... Hugh Bowden ALGEBRA Peter M. Higgins AMERICAN HISTORY Paul S. Boyer AMERICAN IMMIGRATION David A. Gerber AMERICAN ...