Technics and Civilization

WORKING

Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York City: Harcourt, Brace and Company / London, UK: Routledge, 1934. Rpt. in paperback with new Introduction (and Corrigenda [notice of errors] — and possibly some additional illustrations) San Diego and other cities: Harcourt Brace & Company-Harvest, 1963.

From Wikipedia entry:

Technics and Civilization is a 1934 book by American philosopher and historian of technology Lewis Mumford. The book presents the history of technology and its role in shaping and being shaped by civilizations. According to Mumford, modern technology has its roots in the Middle Ages rather than in the Industrial Revolution. It is the moral, economic, and political choices we make, not the machines we use, Mumford argues, that have produced a capitalist industrialized machine-oriented economy, whose imperfect fruits serve the majority so imperfectly. [...]

The first phase of technically civilized life (AD 1000 to 1800) begins with the clock, to Mumford the most important basis for the development of capitalism because time thereby becomes fungible (thus transferable). The clock is the most important prototype for all other machines. [1]

For an elegant statement of Mumford's thesis on clock's see N. Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, I.1, pp. 11-12 in 1985 paperback edition.

RDE, finishing, 1Dec22