The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology

The impact of technology on society is clear and unmistakable. The influence of society on technology is more subtle. The 13 essays in this book draw on a wide array of case studies from cooking stoves to missile systems, from 15th-century Portugal to today’s AI labs – to outline an original research program based on a synthesis of ideas from the social studies of science and the history of technology. Together they affirm the need for a study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions.Wiebe E. Bijker teaches in the Department of General Sciences at the University of Limburg in The Netherlands; Thomas P. Hughes is Professor of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Trevor Pinch is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of York in England