Perspectives on Technology

Perspectives on Technology consists of papers written by Nathan Rosenberg over a ten-year period, from the early 1960s to the early 1970s.

Nathan Rosenberg (Author)

9780521290111, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 July 1976

364 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.53 kg

Perspectives on Technology consists of papers written by Nathan Rosenberg over a ten-year period, from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. Their origin was in Professor Rosenberg's interest in long-term economic growth processes and, especially, in the behaviour of industrializing societies. The form and direction which this book has taken reflect two basic influences: (1) a growing awareness of the centrality of technological phenomena in generating economic growth, and (2) a growing sense that, in spite of the basic and genuine insights into technological phenomena provided by the neo-classical economics, a deeper and richer understanding of the phenomena can only be achieved by a willingness to step outside the limited intellectual boundaries of this mode of reasoning.

Part I. Some origins of American technology: 1. Technological change in the machine tool industry, 1840–1910
2. America's rise to woodworking leadership
3. Anglo-American wage differences in the 1820's
Part II. The generation of new technologies: 4. Problems in the economist's conceptualization of technological innovation
5. Neglected dimensions in the analysis of economic change
6. The direction of technological change: inducement mechanisms and focusing devices
7. Karl Marx on the economic role of science
Part III. Diffusion and adaptation of technology: 8. Capital goods, technology, and economic growth
9. Economic development and the transfer of technology: some historical perspectives
10. Selection and adaptation in the transfer of technology: steam and iron in America 1800–1870
11. Factors affecting the diffusion of technology
Part IV. Natural resources, environment and the growth of knowledge: 12. Technology and the environment: an economic exploration
13. Technological innovation and natural resources: the niggardliness of nature reconsidered
14. Innovative responses to materials shortages
15. Science, invention, and economic growth.

Subject Areas: History [HB]