Analyzes social conditions that promote or retard technological activity, emphasizing role of business, the state, and scientific and engineering professions, and the emergence of consumerism.

Introduction to intellectual problems and trends in modern Europe, including loss of faith in progress, evil and ethics, post-colonialism, feminism, linguistics, and psycho-analytic thought.

Independent research conducted under the guidance of a faculty member.

Uses historical case studies to examine the relationship between engineers and the larger society in which they function. Often taught jointly with engineering faculty.

Political, economic, and cultural development of England during the Middle Ages (c. 350-1400). Myths and legends of Stonehenge, the Druids, and King Arthur's Camelot explored.

Technologies have formed the basis of material culture and influenced the course of social change throughout human history. Yet the shape of technologies’ influence on society has varied significantly with time and place in a way that often goes unnoticed by engineering students. The present course combines the history of technology with world history. While the word “innovation” is modern, creative technical activity, along with changing social practices, is as old as humankind. Through a series of historical case studies – prehistoric fire, medieval cathedrals, artisanal French bread, railways, and smart phones – we will see how engineering (broadly defined) evolved over major eras of the past. In the process, we address three basic questions concerning technology and society. First, what exactly is technological change – how does it actually occur and how does it differ from the way we talk about the topic? How has its form changed over time? Second, what are the social roots, or origins, of technological change, or “innovation” – what role do different social groups and institutions, as well as various ideas, play in encouraging or inhibiting such change? And, third, what are the social consequences (and costs) of technological change and who benefits from its gains? Put differently, how should we discuss “progress”? We cannot answer any of these questions in the abstract. Instead, we must address them in specific historical settings, and we do well to go back as far back in time as humanly possible – hence, our case studies.