Perspectives on Technology

by Nathan Rosenberg

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521290111
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/30/1976
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.83(d)

Table of Contents

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.