History In Machines, by John K. Brown

by John K. Brown
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8 books
Through the power and reach of our technologies, humanity has shaped nearly every aspect of the natural and built worlds. The reverse is equally true: machines transform us. Those transformations, however, can be difficult to discern while they unfold. Consider that the “Industrial Revolution” was a century old before Arnold Toynbee popularized that moniker. Our perceptions are further blinkered by the long-perceived gulf in thought and in intrinsic appeal between humanism and engineering. This Listi offers titles from the history of technology, broadly conceived, that explore the mutual shaping of humans, environments, and machines. Three criteria guided the selections: significant topics by accomplished writers who shed new light to open our perception.
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Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea

The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck
Gary Kinder, 2009
This book combines two amazing, improbable stories, both at the intersection of human aspirations, technical accomplishment, and the natural world. In 1857, a modern sidewheel steamboat, Central America, struggled to survive a fierce gale off the South Carolina coast. Over a century later, a maverick innovator developed an array of technologies to salvage her cargo of California gold. Then he disappeared.

Fate is the Hunter

A Pilot's Memoir
Ernest K. Gann, 1986
A memoir by a pioneer of American commercial aviation, Gann takes his readers into the clouds, around the world, and inside the reckonings of fate, death, and destiny. Published in 1961 and still in print.

The Organic Machine

The Remaking of the Columbia River
Richard White, 2011
This slim book explores the relationships of humans to the natural world in the Columbia River valley of the Pacific Northwest. Encompassing Native Americans, white settlers, and Federal policies, White’s topical coverage focuses on work and energy in the evolving landscape. A pioneering work in environmental history.

Command and Control

Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
Eric Schlosser, 2014
This skilled researcher and writer intertwines three related stories. In 1980, trained personnel of the US Air Force bumbled into a perilous accident at a Titan II missile silo in Arkansas. Setting those details in context, Schlosser details forty years of harrowing accidents with atomic weapons (known as “broken arrows” in military jargon). He also explores four decades of work by civil and military authorities to prevent accidents and preserve control over weapons that, by error or intent, can end all life on Earth.

The Soul of A New Machine

Tracy Kidder, 2011
Originally published in 1982, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and still in print, this book describes the drivers behind high-tech innovation.

The Box

How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Second Edition with a new chapter by the author
Marc Levinson, 2016
Built to standard lengths (commonly 20 or 40 feet), steel shipping containers are prosaic, ubiquitous, and revolutionary. Dating to 1956, this invention exerted worldwide effects on markets, work, wealth, corporate structures, and standards of living. Levinson traces these linkages in efficient prose that is never dull.

The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road

Finn Murphy, 2017
Since the 1960s, semi-trucks have carried the vast majority of intercity freight in the United States. Although central to our visual landscapes and the economy, truckers live and work in a separate world. Murphy is their skilled interlocutor. His book combines memoir with history, policy, geography, and social commentary. Get the Audible version for your next long road trip.

The Perfect Weapon

War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
David E. Sanger, 2019
A prize-winning reporter at the New York Times, Sanger’s 2019 book explores the development, use, and dark results of cyber-warfare. That broad term encompasses any digital method to disrupt an enemy’s weapons, systems of command and control, civilian infrastructures, and corporate operations. “Perfect” because such weapons are cheap, hard to trace, and available to powers great and small.