Society and Technological Change

Engaging and insightful, Society and Technological Change introduces the study of society and technology through technologys influence on our daily lives in addition to how it has shaped societies where its created.

Rudi Volti is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College, and he is a founding member of the program in Science, Technology, and Society of the Claremont Colleges. His books and articles have covered a variety of topics relating to the interaction of technology and society, including technology transfer to East Asia, the history of the engineering profession, the origin of frozen foods, and the history of automobile engines. He currently serves as book review editor for Transfers: The Journal of Interdisciplinary Mobility Studies. His personal encounters with  technology center on cars, motorcycles, and model railroading.

Part 1 Defining Technology
1. The Nature of Technology
2. Winners and Losers: The Differential Effects of Technological Change

Part Two The Process of Technological Change
3. The Sources of Technological Change
4. Scientific Knowledge and Technological Advance
5. The Diffusion of Technology

Part Three How Technology Affects the Health of the Earth and Its Inhabitants
6. Technology, Energy, and the Environment
7. Medical Technologies
8. Genetic Technologies

Part Four Technology and the Transformation of Work
9. Work in Nonindustrial Societies
10. Technology and Jobs: More of One and Less of the Other?
11. Technological Change and Life on the Job

Part Five Communication
12. Printing
13. The Electronic Media: From the Telegraph to Television
14. The Internet Age      

Part Six The Tools of Destruction
15. Weapons and Their Consequences
16. The Era of Smart Weapons*
17. How New Weapons Emerge—And How They May Be Contained

Part Seven The Shaping and Control of Technology
18. Technology and Its Creators: Who’s in Charge of Whom?
19. Organizations and Technological Change
20. Governing Technology