Technology and Globalisation: Networks of Experts in World History

by David Pretel (Editor), Lino Camprubí (Editor)

Overview

This book examines the role of experts and expertise in the dynamics of globalisation since the mid-nineteenth century. It shows how engineers, scientists and other experts have acted as globalising agents, providing many of the materials and institutional means for world economic and technical integration. Focusing on the study of international connections, Technology and Globalisation illustrates how expert practices have shaped the political economies of interacting countries, entire regions and the world economy.

This title brings together a range of approaches and topics across different regions, transcending nationally-bounded historical narratives. Each chapter deals with a particular topic that places expert networks at the centre of the history of globalisation. The contributors concentrate on central themes including intellectual property rights, technology transfer, tropical science, energy production, large technological projects, technical standards and colonial infrastructures. Many also consider methodological, theoretical and conceptual issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319754505
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	06/13/2018
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Economic History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

David Pretel is Research Fellow at the Centre for Historical Studies, Colmex, The College of Mexico, Mexico. He specialises in the global history of technology, international economic history and the intellectual history of capitalism, with an ever-increasing interest in Latin American history.

Lino Camprubí is Research Fellow at the Center for the History of Science, UAB Barcelona, Spain. He has been a research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany, and a visiting lecturer at University of Chicago, USA.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Technological Encounters: Locating Experts in the History of Globalisation.- Chapter 2. The Historical Roots of Modern Bridges: China Engineers as Global Actors.- Chapter 3.- Indigenous Resistance and the Technological Imperative: From Chemistry in Birmingham to Camphor Wars in Formosa, 1860s–1914.- Chapter 4. Global Engineers: Professional Trajectories of the Graduates of the École des arts et manufactures (1830s-1920s).- Chapter 5. Re-designing Africa: Railways and Globalisation in the Era of the New Imperialism.- Chapter 6. The Global Rise of Patent Expertise during the Late Nineteenth Century.- Chapter 7. Networks of American Experts in the Caribbean: The Harvard Botanic Station in Cuba (1898-1930).- Chapter 8. Hector Vera: Breaking Global Standards: The Anti-Metric Crusade of American Engineer.- Chapter 9. Statistics as Service to Democracy: Experimental Design and the Dutiful American Scientist.- Chapter 10. The bona fide contracts: An Engineering Company in Wartime Shanghai, 1937-1945.- Chapter 11. Dutch Irrigation Engineers and Their (Post-) Colonial Irrigation Networks.- Chapter 12. Engineers and Scientist as Commercial Agents of the Spanish Nuclear Program.- Chapter 13. Engineers’ Diplomacy: The South American Petroleum Institute, 1941-1950s.- Chapter 14. Epilogue: Technology’s Activists and Global Dynamics.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This rich collection of essays opens up a new perspective on the globalisation of knowledge in history. It highlights networks of scientific and technical experts, which contributed to global developments from the time of the Second Industrial Revolution to the end of the Cold War era. The essays cover a breath-taking scope of topics and have been written by leading experts in their fields. The editors are to be congratulated for bringing together this highly informative volume.” (Jürgen Renn, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany)

“This is an important book, which fruitfully engineers a complex set of productive conversations. Methodologically, it approaches global history by bringing economic history together with the history of science and technology. Content wise, it emphasises the tension-filled and heterogeneous character of globalisation by focusing on a geographically extensive set of technologically mediatedprojects carried out by engineers and other experts. True to life, not all of these projects succeeded, but their stories work together to reveal the dynamics that continue to inform global developments today.” (Lissa Roberts, University of Twente, the Netherlands)

“This book situates the history of science and technology firmly in the history of modern globalisation. This wide-ranging collection of essays—written by leading scholars from ten countries—explores the myriad ways in which networks of technical experts have served as agents of globalisation. They shed new light on the “backstage” of technical knowledge and practice which, in many cases, made globalisation possible.” (Stuart McCook, University of Guelph, Canada)

“This book edited by Pretel and Camprubí puts together clever and insightful essays on the transnational and international networks of experts that shaped the global diffusion and adaptation of technology in the modern world. Specific cases, revealing the nuances and contradictions of a complex process, are woven into a rich theoretical framework that throws a new light on the lineages of global capitalism.” (Juan Pan-Montojo, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain)