Taking up from the more general debate in the second volume on Innovation and Technology , this book focuses on the historical relationship between scientific knowledge and the development of modern industrial technologies. This is a rapidly growing and important field of historical research, with clear relevance to current concerns about the processes of technological innovation, and the book offers the first broad and critical assessment of the wider implications of recent research for understanding the historical relationship between science and technology.
Separate essays by leading international authorities examine how science and scientists came to be organized from the eighteenth century to the present, and cover topics from the early scientific societies through to the development of laboratory- based scientific training in the nineteenth century; the development of new specialisms and branches of research; the placement of trained scientists on labour markets; the role of the state and military priorities in simulating scientific research; the development of 'scientific cultures'; the returns of industrial research and development in the twentieth century and the role of scientists in the development of contemporary advanced technology industries. The debate stretches across the first, second and third industrial revolutions and draws widely on European and North American examples.
Although approaching the issues from different perspectives, the examples explored challenge the long-held assumption that technological innovation has historically been led by 'pure science': the historical record suggests that both in what it is looking for and how it is organized, the development of scientific knowledge since the eighteenth century has more generally been determined by demands generated within industry and more generally within modern industrial societies.
- ISBN10 0631183329
- ISBN13 9780631183327
- Publish Date 31 January 1996
- Publish Status Unknown
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Imprint Blackwell Publishers
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 240
- Language English