Global History of Techniques

It is impossible to understand societies without looking at their technological underpinnings. Technology constitutes the very fabric of societies' political, economic, cultural, and everyday realities. Building on recent historiography, this book offers the first overview of the global history of contemporary technology.

Gathering more than fifty specialists of the history of technology, the collection of essays presents an overview of technological evolutions on a global scale. The book challenges both teleological approaches on progress and eurocentric perspectives. It explores the complex socio-economic implications of ‘techniques’ (and not simply technology) as well as the systems of representation and power structures that led to the emergence of today’s world.

The purpose of the collected essays is to offer a new history of technology. In this perspective, a central question concerns the very category of the history of technology, i.e. the term ‘technology’ itself. Refusing both the limitations of ‘technology’ and of ‘useful knowledge’, the book stresses the necessity to study technology as embodying human activity as a whole. In that sense, history of technology, envisioned as techniques rather than purely technologies, is intrinsically linked to anthropology and ethnology.

This book is divided into three sections. The first section opens with a world tour of techniques, restoring the complexity of regional historiographies and of the meanings given to technological activities in different societies. The second part focuses on sectors of activity, processes, and products with a strong emphasis on means of production and communication, the exploitation of natural resources, major technological systems, infrastructures and networks. The final section provides access to major cross-related issues. It pays particular attention to the role played by technology/techniques in the process of globalization, particularly through colonization, imperialism, and the development of large technological systems.

Global History of Techniques, Globalization of the History of Techniques, by Guillaume Carnino, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, Jérôme Lamy

Part 1: Techniques Across the World

Introduction, by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez

From the ‘Stone Age’ to the Digital Era: Techniques in Oceania, a Brief Historiography (19^th–21^st centuries), by Marie Durand

The Middle East in the 19^th and 20^th centuries: At the Crossroads of Technological Continuity and Sudden Western Modernity, by Elisabeth Mortier

Integration Process of Science and Technology, between Dependence and the Desire to Innovate: the Case of Maghreb, by Yamina Bettahar

Technology and Modernisation in East Asia: What Dragons Can Teach us about Global History, by Francesca Bray, Alexandra Kobiljski

Framing the History of Technology in India: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age, by Dhruv Raina, Om Prasad, Nayani Sarma

African Technological Pasts since 1800, by Joshua Grace

Central European Historical Writing on Technology, from 1945 to the Present Day: Institutional Contexts and Directions of Research, by Jawad Daheur

Unpacking ‘Eurocentric’ Technology Discourses ‘Back Home’: Technology and Societal Challenges in Western Europe, by Erik van der Vleuten

The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and Post-socialist Russia, 19^th century-early 21^st century, by Elena Kochetkova, Julia Obertreis

Technology in North America: Nation Building, Industrialization, and Technoscience, by Jérôme Baudry

Latin America in the Global History of Technology, by David Pretel

Part 2: Artefacts, Processes, Sectors

Introduction, by Guillaume Carnino

Technology and its Temporalities, a Global Perspective, by Jonas van der Straeten, Heike Waltraud Weber

Mining and Extractive Industries: Prospecting, Extracting, And Post-mining Techniques in the Anthropocene Era, by Kevin Troch

Heavy Industries, from Steel and Molecules to the Cloud, by Florence Hachez-Leroy

Energy in the History of Technology, by Mahdi Khelfaoui, Anaël Marrec

Aeronautics and Aerospace: Globalization and Technical Junctions, by Jérôme Lamy, Arnaud Saint-Martin

Mobility Techniques: Objects and Supports of Transfers, by Arnaud Passalacqua

Sailing and Fishing: when Technical Innovation Reshaped the Seas, by Géraldine Barron, Julia Lajus

Water Harnessed by Industry: Hydraulic Technology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by Raphaël Morera, Elisabeth Mortier

Food Technology: Food Preservation, Packaging and Transport, by Ludovic Laloux

Four Examples of Transformations of Agricultural Techniques from the 19^th to the Beginning of the 21^st century, by Fabien Knittel

Electrifying Information: Global Telecommunication Technologies 19^th–21^st centuries, by Vincent Kuitenbrouwer

From Calculators to Datacenters: History of Industrial Computing and Quantification, by Guillaume Carnino

From Banking Computerization to Fintech: The Digital Revolution in Banking (1950s–1990s), by Sabine Effosse, Laure Quennouelle-Corre

Two Centuries of Technical Progress in Civil Engineering and Construction: A Few Lines of Strength, by Dominique Barjot

The Factory of Desire: Textiles and Techniques (19^th–21^st centuries), by Audrey Millet

Part 3: Cross-cutting Issues

Introduction, by Jérôme Lamy

Technology as a Human Science, by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez

Laboratory Techniques, by Joris Mercelis

Big Science and Technological Transformations, by Olof Hallonsten

Technique and Law, by Alessandro Nuvolari, Caterina Sganga

Training and Technological Education, by Stéphane Lembré

Prometheus Unbound: War and Technology from 1800 to Globalisation, by Patrice Bret

Taylorism, by Patrick Fridenson

Conflicts and Controversies over Techniques, by François Jarrige

Body Techniques and the Search for Human Perfection: From the Regeneration of the Social Body to the Injunction to Surpass Oneself, by Cecilia Calheiros

Thinking the Co-constitution of Gender and Technology from a Feminist Perspective, by Virginie Julliard

Technologies of Art and Culture: Film and Sound, by Martine Beugnet, Mathieu Duplay

A Short and Reflexive History of Everyday Life Technologies, Late 18^th–21^st Centuries, by Gil Bartholeyns, Manuel Charpy

Technology, Pollution, and Environment, by Soraya Boudia, Nathalie Jas

Repair, Recycling and Waste, by Thierry Bonnot, Michel Letté