Marx and the machine; economic and sociological explanations of technological change; from the luminiferous ether to the Boeing; nuclear weapons laboratories and the development of supercomputing; the charismatic engineer (with Boelie Elzen); the fangs of the VIPER; negotiating arithmetic, constructing proof; computer-related accidental death; tacit knowledge and the uninvention of nuclear weapons (with Graham Spinardi).
In this collection MacKenzie reveals his marvellous talent for taking the ideas belonging to the abstruse field of sociology of scientific and technological knowledge and revealing their enormous consequences for the wider world of politics. No-one but MacKenzie would have taken the idea of tacit knowledge and used it to show that we might one day forget how to make nuclear bombs. This superbly crafted research married to MacKenzie's calm pragmatism have led to a book that will become a standard reference for many aspects of the sociology of technology. -- Harry Collins, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise and Science at University of Southampton These essays are a remarkable achievement and a delight to read. Whilst many scholars have paid lip-service to interdisciplinary research, Donald MacKenzie has gone out and done it. He has restored the lost unity of the social sciences in a way which is comparable to the work of Marx and Mill in a previous century. He has blazed a trail which all of us should follow. -- Chris Freeman, Emeritus Professor of Science and Technology Policy, SPRU, University of Sussex Donald MacKenzie has distinguished himself among historians, sociologists, and engineers as an influential essayist. This volume demonstrates his mastery of the richly detailed historical narrative, penetratingly analyzed and given meaning by social concern. -- Thomas P. Hughes, Mellon Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, and Visiting Professor, MIT These are stunning essays. MacKenzie's history of supercomputers and inertial navigation systems shatters the economists' belief that technology developed along 'natural trajectories' in the past; his analysis of the importance of tacit knowledge in the development of complex technology, however, also challenges the political scientists' belief that nuclear weapons, once constructed, can never be 'uninvented' in the future. -- Scott D. Sagan, Stanford University These are stunning essays. MacKenzie's history of supercomputers and inertial navigation systems shatters the economists' belief that technology developed along 'natural trajectories' in the past; his analysis of the importance of tacit knowledge in the development of complex technology, however, also challenges the political scientists' belief that nuclear weapons, once constructed, can never be 'uninvented' in the future. -- Scott D. Sagan, Stanford University The essays collected in Knowing Machines are enormously impressive: for the quality of the scholarship, for their wide range and for what they indicate about Donald MacKenzie's grasp of the demanding technical issues under discussion. -- Steven Yearley Times Literary Supplement
Donald MacKenzie is Professor of Sociology (Personal Chair) at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Inventing Accuracy (1990), Knowing Machines (1996), and Mechanizing Proof (2001), all published by the MIT Press. Portions of An Engine, not a Camera won the Viviana A. Zelizer Prize in economic sociology from the American Sociological Association.
"These are stunning essays. MacKenzie's history of supercomputers and inertial navigation systems shatters the economists' belief thattechnology developed along 'natural trajectories' in the past; his analysis of the importance of tacit knowledge in the development of complex technology, however, also challenges the political scientists' belief that nuclear weapons, once constructed, can never be 'uninvented' in the future." Scott D. Sagan, Stanford University "The essays collected in Knowing Machines are enormouslyimpressive: for the quality of the scholarship, for their wide rangeand for what they indicate about Donald MacKenzie's grasp of thedemanding technical issues under discussion." Steven Yearley , Times Literary Supplement
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