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From the Publisher
"This is an important book, one for which the community of science and technology studies scholars has been waiting. In clear prose, using numerous salient examples, Richard Sclove provides a philosophic and practical foundation for participatory technology. I am looking forward to using this book in several of my courses (undergraduate and adult education) because I think it teaches the vital lesson that all citizens are experts at understanding the impact of technological change and that all citizens can become experts at affecting technological development." --Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Ph.D., Past President of the Society for the History of Technology, author of More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave, Professor of History and Director of Women's Studies, State University of New York at Stonybrook"No more intimidation! We citizens don't have to stand aside and leave it to the experts' when it comes to complex technological questions, argues Richard Sclove. His rich examples permit each of us to imagine a rewarding role in shaping the technologies that can serve our values. In the quiet citizen-led revolution of hope now transforming communities across America, this book will be an essential tool to strengthen democratic public problem-solving. Sclove gives us a compelling moral argument and a practical guide to shaping our future. Bravo!" --Frances Moore Lappe and Paul Martin DuBois, Ph.D., Co-Directors of the Center for Living Democracy and Coauthors of The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives
"Democracy and Technology is remarkably ambitious, superbly accessible, and urgently needed--a gold mine of fundamental insights and suggestive provocations concerning the reckless global rush to technological deliverance. At a time when democracy has eroded not only in practice, but also in imagination, Richard Sclove compels us to envision a different world. This is the most far-reaching work I have seen on the political nature of technological change." --David F. Noble, author of Forces of Production: A Social History of Machine Tool Automation and America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism, York University, Toronto
"Richard Sclove's arguments for making technology more responsive to democratically decided social concerns are at once hopeful and tough-minded. Those alarmed--as I am--by global capitalism's potential for ecological, social, and political damage will find here the seeds for a humane, alternative social order, as well as a plausible strategy for getting there. A much needed book!" --Robert L. Heilbroner, Norman Thomas Professor Emeritus of Economics at The New School for Social Research; author of Visions of the Future
"Democracy and Technology is a compelling and comprehensive case for a democratic politics of technology. Drawing on political theory, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and the history of technology, Richard Sclove shows the importance of extending our political attention to the technological setting of our common lives. The argument is lucid, the sensibilities are humane, and the conclusions are important. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the theory and practice of democracy." --Joshua Cohen, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and Politics Science at MIT
"A welcome addition to the essential debate on how technology and democracy can flourish together, the book provides a provocative and thorough analysis of the challenges facing us on the threshold of the 21st Century." --U.S. Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., Ranking Democratic Member and Former Chairman, House Science Committee
"Democracy and technology, and the way these two institutions affect each other, is perhaps the most pressing problem of the coming decade. Neither Luddite nor Technophile, Sclove takes a close and analytical look at possible solutions. Instead of attacks and counterattacks, Sclove directs our attention to solutions that might actually work." --Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community
"The panoramic sweep of Sclove's proposed reforms... make the book useful for contemporary social issues classes where students are exposed to these ideas for the first time." --D.L. Feldman, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
"...timely and valuable...highly original....Tightly reasoned and far-ranging in examples and erudition, this book requires and rewards a close reading. Such relevant matters as community, education, energy, politics, and work earn cogent and illuminating discussion....he insists that we have no healthy option but to struggle for a more democratic technological order. If we are soon or ever to achieve this, much credit will be owed his seminal work and a publisher civic-minded enough to bring out an inexpensive edition." --Arthur B. Shostak, Drexel University, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
"Democracy and Technology is one book whose context I knew would be of profound interest to me. After reading it, I was not disappointed....It is a book that should be read by those people who desire to understand the subtle and not so subtle relationships that exist between not only technology and democracy, but economics and technology, economics and society, society and technology." --Michael Kreek, President, Geosoft: The Company; Founder and Director, Institute for Vernacular Philosophy in Human Economy
"....The detail of Sclove's critique of conventional economic reasoning and of his strategy for democratizing technology makes this book original and gives it an importance of its own...." --Kenneth Westhues, Sociology Prof. associated with The Working Centre, Kitchener, Ontario in Catholic New Times
"Sclove's unifying--and to me, incontrovertible--premise is that a democratic society worthy of the name does not passively allow technological innovation to erode democratic processes and institutions. The fact that we persistently, if often resignedly, allow this erosion to occur underscores the significance of his message." --Daniel Sarewitz, director of Geological Society of America's Institute for Environmental Education in Science and Technology
"... the book is a call for renewed activism towards more democratic, egalitarian, and ecological social/technological structures - the idea of having government in our hands rather than simply 'off our backs'. As such, it is recommended for activists and citizens concerned about technology, environment and society, and for policy-makers." Thomas C. Hilde, Texas A& M University. Canadian Philosophical Review
"...Democracy and Technology is a book of Whitmanesque exuberance, with Sclove's enthusiasm tor democracy as a way of life cascading forth on every page. Sclove's treatment of them (familiar themes) is as creative and artful as the society that he would like to see, filled with empirical evidence to show, in detail, that the possibilities as well as the problems are real." --Bart Schultz, University of Chicago.
"The great value of this book is the organization of...familiar thoughts into a coherent philosophical structure, a structure that can be used as the basis for evaluating actions proposed for the solutions to specific problems. It would be interesting to use them to develop an evaluation spreadsheet to rate Vice President Gore's proposal for reinvention of government, Speaker Gingrich's 'Contract with America,' or the North American Free Trade Agreement....Sclove's book, Democracy and Technology, considers a question of national importance. It is especially useful since it gives a conceptual format with which to consider a set of complex and interconnected issues. I hope that it will be widely read and debated." --Keith Jones in The Journal of Urban Technology
"Much to be admired, in addition to his coming to terms with multiple literatures, is Sclove's generally fair-minded search for common ground among all those--social activists, social thinker, academics--who share a broad commitment to democratic technology." --David Hakken, Dept. Of Sociology and Anthropology, SUNY Institute for Technology in Science as Culture
Overview
This eye-opening book describes how modern technologies--such as computers, automobiles, machine tools, hybrid crops, nuclear reactors, and others--contribute to vexing social problems ranging from the continued subordination of women and workers to widespread political disengagement. Engineers, manufacturers, and policy makers...