3 comments about American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm.

1. Thomas Hughes provides a critical look at how technology developed throughout the 20th century. The book begins in the 1870's with the inventors workshop and people like Edison gathering machinists around to develop new technologies for profit. This type of work space was based upon proprietary knowledge and combing the skills of those present. It was not a business driven venture on a product but it focused on the business of innovation. From the centers of innovation corporations began to develop their own think tanks and research and development labs. Although the book leaves out the early efforts of Du Pont it does pick up with AT&T and Bell Labs as the forbearers' of corporate research. The military became the other area for innovation as World War I and eventually 2 brought together science and research in a whole new way from the TVA to the Manhattan project. Also included in this new venture was mass production and the scientific management of Frederick Taylor that was employed at companies such as Bethlehem Steel and beyond. The book trails off in the 1970's with the countercultures efforts at rejecting Taylorism and starting into the PC revolution. This book provides an excellent synopsis of these doctrinal shifts in technological production and how they shaped America.



2. The title indicates his thesis. "Americans," Hughes writes, "created the modern technological nation; this was the American genesis."(3) The problem he faces is this: Americans see "themselves primarily as democratic people dedicated to the doctrine of free enterprise" rather than, as he does, as builders.(1) Hughes' challenge therefore is to redirect the focus on Americans and their culture as inventors and systems builders. He makes a good case. Hughes articulates a chronology that logically follows the growth of systems. First he discusses the invention of systems, then the spread of large systems, and finally "the emergence of a technological culture, of mammoth government systems, and counterculture reactions to systems."(6-7)
   
   American inventiveness and technological enthusiasm characterize the period from 1870 until 1970. In its aftermath there remained a legacy, which Hughes labels as "the burden" of nuclear destruction, environmental concerns, and the wastefulness of wars (he specifically mentions the Vietnam War). Hughes hopes that "those who know the history and [understand] the burden may be able to rid themselves of it or turn it to their ends."(12) In his eyes history has a humanitarian message and he is the oracle. While his focus is on technology, his philosophy is humanistic. Government has a role, but people make the difference. This is how history is valuable. The American experience was unique and his purpose is to elevate people's understanding of their role; indeed, their responsibility.
   
   Beginning in 1870, about the time when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, independent inventors were responsible for a "Gigantic Tidal Wave of Human Ingenuity."(13) The number of patents doubled and, between 1866 and 1896, the number issued to each person nearly doubled. Hughes feels existing historical accounts create an unfair image of inventors, as "one-dimensional heroes."(19) To Hughes this is an inaccurate characterization and he proceeds to redefine them as the cornerstones of technological systems.
   
   To make his point he tries to uncover the source of inventor's creativity and motives. They relied on experimentation and their work was characterized by long hours of drudgery punctuated infrequently by "eureka moments."(20) The independent inventors acted on their own free will and followed their own inspirations. They "could not depend on science and abstract theory as guides into the future because they were exploring beyond the front edge of technology and knowledge."(48-49)
   
   Hughes tries to understand why independent inventors chose to solve the problems they did and how they went about solving them. He also tried to get into their heads. Based on their work his analysis disclosed two types of inventions. "The system-originating inventions can be labeled radical, the system-improving ones conservative."(53) Examples of the radical inventors are the Wright Brothers, the airplane; Lee De Forest and Reginald Fessenden, wireless communication; and Nikola Tesla, power transmission. More conservative professional inventor-entrepreneurs include Thomas Edison, Elmer Sperry, and Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim because of "their years of full-time dedication to invention and their establishment of companies to exploit their inventions."(67) This proves insightful and represents original thinking. It becomes a useful reference as Hughes proceeds to discuss the growth of systems.
   
   Furthermore, in delving into the inventor's minds, Hughes observes a unique thought process in problem solving. A "problem-identification technique that suggest[ed] the image, or metaphor, of a reverse salient in an expanding military front. ...A military front line has salients and reentrants (reverse salients) all along its length."(71)"The reverse salient in an advancing military front proves an apt metaphor for a technological system, because the system, like a military advance develops unevenly. Some components in a technological system, like some units in the military front, fall behind other. In the case of the military, ahead and behind can be determined by physical distance. Some components in technological systems can be said to be behind others, if the former function less efficiently and act as a drag on the system."(72)
   
   This is interesting. Hughes realizes he is using a metaphor which might be confusing to the reader so he proceeds with an explanation in order to make it work. It is an apt metaphor, he observes, because "`reverse salient' suggests the fluidity of the course of technological-system development; other metaphors suggesting rigidity and simplicity, such as `bottleneck,' do not work as well."(72-73)
   
   Metaphors must be used skillfully in order to be affective however they can be misleading. Hughes understands this. "[N]ot only poets, but schizophrenics...[can] make such metaphors."(76) There has to be some similarity or, rather than fostering clarity, just the opposite will occur. In explaining the metaphor Hughes not only educates the reader with a deeper understanding of the technological system, but of the military as well. However this is an appropriate technique if used only sparingly. If each metaphor has to be accompanied by an explanation its usefulness as a literary device is negated.
   
   The "reverse salient" metaphor is important to Hughes as a continuing metaphor fundamental to his thesis. The advance of systems technology is not linear; there are advances and retreats along a wide front. This is evident when technological development shifted from independent inventors to a "system must be first"(184) approach that occurred when the radical attitude of system-originating inventions clashed with the conservative system-improving ones.
   
   A case in point is the experience of inventor-entrepreneur Edwin Armstrong and his investigation of frequency modulation (FM) to counter static interference, a "major reverse salient on the expanding [AM] radio front."(146) "Here was a classic case of the independent inventor's radical attitude toward invention and development clashing with the conservative approach of the large corporation."(148) Armstrong was snubbed by RCA and NBC, both heavily invested in existing technology. A protracted legal struggle ultimately led to Armstrong's vindication in court but only after his death by suicide from the stress. In this example Hughes' previous explanation of the salient was essential to the subsequent use of the metaphor and its understanding.
   
   Utilizing another metaphor Hughes describes the Ford Motor Company Highland Park Plant in Detroit as a "great flowing tide of production" and offers alternative ideas which may have inspired Henry Ford's idea for the assembly line. The evocative images of the "flow of production" in the moving lines of the Chicago meatpackers, in tin can manufacture, and in moving conveyors in flour mills might have influence Ford. Hughes also sees a comparison between auto production and the demand for constant flow, mass demand, and mass supply of electric utility production which Ford learned while an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. Hughes admires the uniqueness of Ford and Edison "who understood that there were no experts about the unknown; no theories, only hypotheses or metaphorical insights, about the uninvented."(215) The idea of mental images as the source of Ford's inspiration is a logical conclusion of Hughes' reasoning.
   
   To make his books more appealing and in deference to his audience, Hughes includes captioned photographs. But there is another, more analytic, reason for the pictures. On the one hand the images help the reader visualize history. On the other hand the pictures are symbolic of the verbal and visual metaphors imagined by inventors to understand their "moment of inventive insight."(75) A metaphor aids interpretive history and also, according to Hughes, in understanding the mystery of an inventor's creativeness. Pictures, whether in the mind or in print, help to clarify history. This is revealing. Hughes, from his literary understanding of the use for metaphors, ingeniously points to their usefulness also as a mental tool of inventors. Historians and inventors have something in common.
   
   Hughes argues the history of technology is critical to understanding America's development but he is not a technological determinist. He does not see American technology as socially constructed, nor is America's development driven by technology because, he writes, "the makers of the modern world...[were expressing] long-held human values and aspirations."(5)



3. From the Independent innovators, to the beginning of research groups, to military research, to systems creators of Taylor and Ford, to military industrial complex systems of production. The first few and last chapters are the best. Edison had over 1000 patents, I have none. :-(

No comments about Bargain Hunters, Contrarians, Cycles and Waves (Secrets of the Great Investors).

1 comments about In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra Club.

1. Michael McCloskey has had a huge influence on conservation and environmentalism in America, and he's truly eligible to be the subject of an informative biography. Unfortunately, he should have had someone else write it. I am a volunteer officer with Sierra Club, active at both the local and state levels, with an interest in the organization's history. For that reason I was attracted to this autobiography of the man who served faithfully with Sierra Club and other important groups for some 40 years, and was one of the Club's most influential Executive Directors. However, even I had trouble keeping up my interest as this book dragged along, and I can't imagine any general reader (who may very well crave knowledge about conservationist history) being able to hold more than a polite semi-interest. This is because McCloskey's story, as told by himself, becomes an interminable list of brief reports, presented strictly in chronological order. Milestones and achievements are presented monotonously with an unchanging focus toward their importance and influence, or lack thereof, and there are very few deeper insights or analyses of historically important trends in conservation.
   
   Granted, there are a few useful tidbits here and there, especially in Chapter 13 in which McCloskey discusses how environmentalists can build alliances with labor, minorities, the poor, and business interests; while in a few other places he has some good advice on the specific financial and tax challenges face by non-profit advocacy groups. But on the other hand, most of the book dwells on minutiae of dubious usefulness, most notably the tedious coverage of several decades of internal power struggles within the Sierra Club leadership - passing strife that now means little to current Sierra Club members and even less to the interested layperson. McCloskey is also regularly prone to an underlying, yet subtle, self-righteousness. Once again, McCloskey is immensely influential in American conservationism, he was a strong leader of an important organization, and his lifetime of accomplishments is ripe material for a biography. But in the form of a self-aggrandizing autobiography, his story does not receive the insight and analysis that could be delivered by a professional biographer or historian. [~doomsdayer520~]

2 comments about Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth.

1. Minotaur by Joseph MacGillivray
   
   This book presents itself as a readable biography of one the great Archaeologists, Sir Arthur Evans, instead of a thoughtful biography the book is really a prolonged attack on Evans (and 19th century archaeology) by an author of dubious credentials and makes for extremely painful reading.
   
   The book is tolerable journalism when its sticks to the factual events, but it is so filled with hostility towards Evans, that the reader is quickly bogged down in a long winded and poorly researched series of ad hominen attacks and innuendo of wrong doing that the thrill of Crete and Minos is completely buried.
   
   The central claim of this bad book is that Evans created Minoan archaeology and did not discover anything. The attacks are unrelenting. The author claims variously : Evans is unscientific and concerned only with objects, stole antquities, horded valuable linear B scripts, was a repressed homosexual, took too much credit for his finds and harmed nearly all of his colleagues, was shrewd and calculating to excess in his business dealings, was a racist because his disliked Turks and personally favored European and Greek religion and culture, was a spoiled wealthly aristocrat of no ability but gifted merely by birth and social standing- who also ate very well, etc etc etc
   
   That the author has issues with Evans is an understatement and parrying all of his attacks (most of which are the authors own unsubstantiated suspicions or irelevant details) is a waste of time.
   
   Evans- the gentlemen and scholar who devoted his 90 years of life to classics, beauty in art and history, who spent his fortune to dig Knossos and who developed new theories of myth and civilization: in short a person whose name will be recalled as long as history-minded Western man is revered- is not present in this book. This book is the product of a modern academic archaeology resentful of its romantic past, that prefers digging with toothbrushes, hates coin collectors, believes antiquities dealers are evil and wishes that British, Germans and French had left everything in the ground for them to sniff about with white gloves and a microscope.
   
   
   That the author is an academic feather-weight is evident in the opening pages, where he attempts to work out his own crude thesis: Evans was not an archaeologist but a myth maker motivated by sexual demons. His analysis is so bad, reading his turns of phrase are like chewing on sand: "Archaeologists are the progenitors as well as the midwives at the birthing process we call excavation." Ugly writing quickly leads to bad analysis such as this delphic prose: " ...we must start with Evans himself, the product of his genes and his life experiences." These experiences include the alleged homosexuality of Evans which the author tries to awkwardly weave into his book perhaps hoping to increase sales, but he cannot find much and we are left with a few sentences of inane writing worthy only of a freshman trying to impress a bored teaching assistant. He writes that he suspects Evans was driven to pursue his career because of the "repressed 'beastliness' of his homosexuality..." His efforts degenerate further a few hundred pages later with innuendo about a young man Evans adopted and his association with Baden Powell and the Boy Scout movement.
   
   The author has no wit and his style wears the reader down. He makes no effort in the biography to educate the reader about the civilization of Crete and takes the excitement of the past away completely. I know of no other book on archaeology that deadens its subject matter to such a degree. The author is all over the place with his own insipid thoughts and at times contradicts his own thin analysis.
   
   For example the author continually harps on the fact that Evan's sister titled her biography of him, "Time and Chance". The author writes "Nothing could be further from what I believe about how Evans discovered Knossos..."(p.6) In his effort to bring Evans down from his perch the author continually paints Evans as simply a digger with money. At the end of his book, the author returns to this theme: "Arthur Evans did not stumble upon Knossos by some happy circumstance. He set his mind on acquiring the rights to a well-documented site.... he secured the expertise he lacked in the person of a site foreman, architects, and conservators..." (p.308) Ok this attack may work in hindsight, but on page 175 the author himself writes: "they all faced the risk that within a few hours they might have removed only a thin layer of eroded soil and exposed a solid rock outcropping scattered with worthless pot shards... Evans might learn that he had chased off the other suitors only to find the bride barren of promise and her dowry worthless. These are the risks excavators take." Which is it? Did Evans simply walk in and dig up what everyone knew was there or did chance play a role and did he finally locate the fabled city of Knossos after three and a half millenium? Clearly this writer is a moron.
   
   A good graduate student should set things right and demolish MacGillivray's shoddy research on Evans, a student of history with a sense of the classical- not one inspired while waiting to use public tennis courts in Manhattan as MacGillivray says he was. Surely some inspiration can still be found in the stones of ruined cities, a brilliant gemstone or winds of the Mediterranean.
   
   The author, in writing this extended effort to libel the dead, succeeds only in diminishing our native appreciation of history, and our myths. That is the end point of modernity.



2. Sandy MacGillivray's in depth analysis of the life and times of pioneer Cretan archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans was a pure joy to read. The author's own experiences as a professional in the field on Crete add great weight to his arguments as he finds himself coping the Evans' legacy on a daily basis. I really got the sense that the author knew Evans, both the man and the scholar, through close attention to and extensive research on the amply available primary sources. This is a wonderfully scholarly, yet very readable and highly interesting book to both the professional archaeologist and interested armchair amateur.

2 comments about Erasmus Darwin: A Life of Unequalled Achievement.

1. Just about all that I knew about Erasmus Darwin before reading this book was that he was Charles Darwin's grandfather and was the author of Zoonomia, a precursor to Charles' theory of evolution. Desmond King-Hele does an excellent job of putting together this comprehensive biography of Erasmus Darwin, basing much of his work on newly-donated material in the British Library. Erasmus was not merely a precuror to his more famous grandson. He was a productive scientist in his own right. One wonders what else Erasmus might have produced if he had not been obliged to work for his living as a physician. His grandson Charles lived off inherited wealth, but his output was limited by his mysterious illness. Not only was Erasmus an accomplished physician and scientist, but he also maintained contact with a wide circle of intellectual friends. And on top of all that he was a brilliant poet, cited as a precursor to the Romantics Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and others. Erasmus Darwin was a truly remarkable man and this biography does him fine justice.



2. Charles Darwin was an indifferent divinity student when he was upbraided by Dr. Robert Grant for overlooking his family's tradition of evolutionary thought, presumably Charles had bespoke himself of some Genesis convention. Erasmus Darwin was one of the great English intellectuals of the past 1,000 years, far surpassing the achievements of his grandson. His ideas were surpressed during the paranoid period of the Napoleon Wars. King-Hele's book takes some of the myth out of Darwinism finding that the modern convention is actually closer to Erasmus's theory than Charles's theory. Charles wrote a biography of Erasmus giving him his due but this was edited by Charles's daughter Henrietta. A very interesting tale about a seminal issue in modern science. This book is the cornerstone for reaching an understanding that Darwinism is a social movement not an intellectual movement, and is not about to be overthrown by historical facts. This book will not likely do well in the market since the educated public loves the old stories and trash science like the Selfish Gene. It is also interesting to note that Freudism, equally out of date, is also impossible to eradicate, even though it is under general attack. Strange business this.

5 comments about Tales of the Himalaya: Adventures of a Naturalist.

1. Larry Swan was a born naturalist, an original thinker, and an inspiring teacher. He was also a fascinating character and a raconteur of the first order. When I was an undergraduate in the 1960s, his courses at San Francisco State College were legendary. His lectures were like savory curries. He served up meaty ideas in a rich masala of entertaining and sometimes bawdy stories. "Tales of the Himalaya" is a collection of Swan's adventures and the discoveries and ideas that emanated from them. The chapters stand by themselves. There are chapters on debunking the yeti, his discovery of the Aeolian Biome, a theory of high altitude bird migration, an amusing exploration of leeches and lice, and a wonderful chapter about his beloved Sherpas. (All who took his course in Zoogeography ended up loving Sherpas.) And there is much more. Like Doc Ricketts of Cannery Row, Larry Swan was the kind of person who turned John Steinbeck on to biologists, and made his students want to climb mountains. This is a book about science, exploration and travel, imbued with an infectious personality. If you have ever looked up at a lofty range of mountains and wondered, then this is a book worth reading.



2. I am currently a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in the Northwestern corner of Bangladesh. Although my job keeps me busy I still seem to have large amounts of free time for reading. As there are not many outlets for books in English where we are, my fellow PCV's and I have learned to read almost anything. In a rare and exciting care package from home, my father sent me this fantastic book. Dr.Swan's adventures are so full of excitment and humor that you wish they were your own. They can compel even the most diehard homebody to think of packing a bag and heading to the mountians. Dr.Swan writes of the Himalaya and it's people with respect and admiration that could only come from someone who knew and loved them well. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a little adventure or some very truthful information. As soon as i finished it I sent it off to a friend in the neighboring town. I have yet to see it show up back at the Peace Corps library, which means it is still floating around somewhere amongst the PCV's of Bangladesh.



3. I am one of the lucky ones who actually knew Prof. Larry Swan, the author of this remarkable book, and I was privileged to have heard all of these stories recounted by the man himself in the classroom and at his home. Although I miss his voice and grand gestures, I am delighted to report that the stories in his book, from his boyhood in Darjeeling, to high altitude spiders, Yetis and the great Indian monsoon, are as engrossing on the printed page as they were to hear! Professor Swan was a remarkable biologist, a master teacher and a creative, gifted man who lived a full and amazing life. This excellent volume of his adventures and thoughts is a reminder to us that great lives can be led, and great mentors can be found. It is a must for all inquiring minds and adventurous spirits!!



4. Written in a casual, funny and lively style, this book is chock full of fascinating nuggets about the critters and people that populate the Himalayas. Lawrence Swan was an excellent writer and a renowned authority on Himalayan wildlife. A must read for anyone interested in wildlife, The Himalayas, and/or the rigors of field work.



5. Hello...I'm a 13 year old girl, and I knew Dr. Swan quite well. He was a great, full of energy, brilliant person. This book is wonderful, and the life of him is very interesting, even to me. I would definately something i would recommend to anyone and everyone. I will prolly read this a million times, and I will never get sick of it, ever.

2 comments about The Statue Within: An Autobiography (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Series).

1. I got a copy of this book long time ago and still remember almost as if happens yesterday. The positive effects of this book have in my life are unforgetable. Actually one of the reasons I decided to became a scientist was because the way Francois Jacob found his way in hard times. The book details his experiences during the second world war and after. In these days, we are in a new century and it seems that we haven't learn much about peace and respect and we have quite similar hard time as Francois Jacob describes. However, I totally believes that this book will be a positive hit for all students in Jr college and high schools and for sure will encourage the scientist of the future to take over this activity. The future of those that identify themselfs with Francois Jacob's life will be significant as time advance.



2. Even though I am a molecular biologist, I began reading The Statue Within with a bit of prejudice that it would be good for me but not necessarily interesting. I figured it would be beneficial to learn more detail about the work of one of the founders of my field. Boy was I surprised! What I got instead was the examination of a complex and vivid personality, a life filled with great flux, confusion, but most of all, a passion for knowledge. Dr. Jacob started off as a reluctant medical student, went to England to escape the Nazi takeover of Paris, signed up with DeGaulle's unofficial French army and served as a medic in a messy, confusing war. Afterward he returned to Paris and his medical studies, but, lacking direction, found himself in the midst of new and interesting biological research about genetics. Fascinated and obsessed, he pestered and cajoled his way into a top laboratory at the Pasteur Institute and began to experiment. His work of course was fundamental to the understanding of the mechanical functioning of genetics, and he went on to win the Nobel. But the beauty of the book is that it isn't about the glory and accolades - it is about the thirst for knowledge and the collaborative bonds that form between bright minds. It is very good for a scientist to be reminded of the essential nature of curiosity and the trial and defense of ones hypotheses. I will be reading this one for the rest of my career!

No comments about The Book of My Life: De Vita Propia Liber.

2 comments about Curie (Life & Times) (Life&Times).

1. Well written and edited. Comprehensive yet succinct. Relevant photos. Essay about Irene an excellent feature.



2. This book goes beyond discussing the scientific achievements of Marie Curie, as well as the many tragedies she had to go through in life. It also focuses on her early life as a young Polish patriot under the oppressive heel of Russian rule. The young Curie describes attending a kulig, a traditional Polish sleigh party that was recognizably an act of resistance against Russian cultural domination. As a schoolgirl, the Marie Curie would walk to Saxony Square in Warsaw and spit on the obelisk set up by the Russia tsar. When she was older, Curie attended the "Floating University", an underground academy that held secret classes in living rooms and meeting halls. Not mentioned is the fact that the "floating university" was revived after the Germans conquered Poland during WWII and abolished all higher learning for Poles. A stirring read!

1 comments about Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs.

1. I love this book. I never realised just how far Richard Owen went in his quest to belittle Gideon Algernon Mantell's ground breaking work on dinosaurs, not to mention the blatant plagiarism for which Owen eventually (after much pressure from his peers) had to apologise for.
   
   To the plenty of Palaeontologists out there who still think Mantell was of minor importance, and Owen was God, please read this book.