Paths of fire

Technology, perhaps the most salient feature of our time, affects everything from jobs to international law, yet ranks among the most unpredictable facets of human life. Here, Robert McC. Adams, renowned anthropologist and Secretary Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, builds a new approach to understanding the circumstances that drive technological change, stressing its episodic, irregular nature.

The result is nothing less than a sweeping history of technological transformation from ancient times until now. Rare in antiquity, the bursts of innovation that mark the path of technology have gradually accelerated and have become an almost continuous feature of our culture. Repeatedly shifting in direction, this path has been shaped by a host of interacting social, cultural, and scientific forces rather than any deterministic logic.

Thus future technological developments, Adams maintains, are predictable only over the very short term.

Adams's account highlights Britain and the United States from early modern times onward. Locating the roots of the Industrial Revolution in British economic and social institutions, he goes on to consider the new forms of enterprise in which it was embodied and its loss of momentum in the later nineteenth century. He then turns to the early United States, whose path toward industrialization initially involved considerable "technology transfer" from Britain.

Adams concludes with an argument for active government support of science and technology research that should be read by anyone interested in America's ability to compete globally.