Title:
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Machine past, machine future : technology in British thought, c. 1870-1914
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This thesis concerns the way technology was conceived in Britain during the
period c.1870-1914, when the word 'technology' was not yet available. Just as
historians of technology have rarely focused on the conceptual and semantic
histories of the word 'technology', intellectual historians have not focused on how
technology was conceived during this period. The thesis addresses this gap by
focusing on 'ideas of the machine', posited as antecedent to the later concept of
technology.
This thesis argues that ideas about technological change more
characteristic of the early nineteenth century (and known as the 'machinery
question') returned in new forms during the period c.1870-1914. It claims that this
new understanding of machines consisted in relating them to readings of
historical change at large, and so was temporal in nature.
During this period, the first historical accounts of the Industrial Revolution
of c.1800 were compiled in different settings, producing visions of what is termed
here the 'machine past'. As part of their growing ambition, scientists at the British
Association produced histories which sought to take credit for the success of new
technologies. The historians Arnold Toynbee, William Cunningham and WJ
Ashley developed accounts of the Industrial Revolution which presented
machines as complex agents of change. Their accounts were built upon by the
economist JA Hobson, who is shown to have theorized technology extensively,
an aspect of his work which has been hitherto ignored. Contemporaneous with
these visions of the 'machine past' were future-oriented works which offered a
critical assessment of technological trends. In a range of writings, HG Wells, GK
Chesterton and others debated the shape of the 'machine future'.
This thesis provides a close reading of influential, competing visions of the
machine and demonstrates how projections of machinery (past and future) served
as critical commentaries on the growing significance of technology for human life.
It concludes that the increasing specialization of intellectual inquiry during this
period became a barrier to the holistic investigation of technology, a process
described here as a 'technological settlement'.
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