Publisher's Synopsis
If asked, most people would agree that there are deep connections between technology and the modern world, and even that technology is the truly distinctive feature of modernity. Until recently, however, there has been surprisingly little overlap between technology studies and modernity theory. The goal of this book is to lay the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field by closely examining the co-construction of technology and modernity.;The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 lays the methodological groundwork for combining studies of technology and modernity, while integrating ideas drawn from feminism, critical theory, philosophy, sociology and socioeconomics. Part 2 continues the methodological discussion, focusing on specific sociotechnical systems or technologies with prominent relations to modernity such as the Internet, surveillance, infrastructures and the western technologies adopted in China and Japan. Part 3 introduces practical and political issues by considering alternative modes of technology development and offering critiques of modern medicine, environmental technology, international development, and technology policy. The book as a whole suggests a broad research program that is both academic and applied and that should help us understand how contemporary societies can govern technologies instead of being governed by them.
