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College Freshman Seminar, Spring 2014
Frsem UA-508
Great Inventions in World History
Breakthrough Technologies that Changed the Course of Civilizations
Professor Richard W. Hull
Office Hours: Thursdays 10:15-10:45; 5:00-5:30.
Suite 710 King Juan Carlos Building (53 Washington Square South)
[email protected]
212-998-8649
Description:
This seminar is an exploration in human ingenuity, from antiquity to the twentieth
century. It focuses on a number of key inventions and innovations that profoundly
affected the course of civilizations and that changed the way people lived and
thought about themselves and the world around them. Special attention will be
given to inventions and to innovations that followed from them that made food,
information, energy more available, that made life safer or more dangerous.
The seminar examines the origins of the inventions, the individuals or groups that
developed or conceived them, their initial impact on the societies of their inventors,
their diffusion to other cultures and ultimately their impact on a global scale. It
considers the transfer of technical knowledge from one country or culture to
another and how it is modified and adapted by the recipients and may trigger a
different but improved or related invention. In the process, we will examine the
interaction of technologies and society. Some inventions are the work of ‘bricolage’
of taking available resources and cobbling them together to create entirely new
uses.
Each invention and innovation under study generated a veritable revolution in the
way humans interacted with each other, organized their lives, and mobilized their
human and natural resources. In some cases we consider how specific inventions
improved the human condition and/or degraded it. We explore the very idea of
‘invention’ and weigh situations or intellectual challenges that gave rise to inventive
impulses. We pose numerous questions like why some societies enthusiastically
embrace a given invention or innovation while others might reject it and see it as a
threat or how some groups attempt to monopolize an invention and endeavor to
prevent its spread to other governments or cultures.
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The scope of the course is expansive, running from the Neolithic era to such
geniuses as al-Khwarizmi and his algorithms in the ninth century C.E. to Steve Jobs
and the computer in the twentieth. Nevertheless, the focus of the seminar will be on
the 19th and 20th centuries.
Structure and Requirements:
A. Seminar discussions, readings and research will be based, in part, on
inventions or inventive concepts in the following general fields:
1. Transportation-Land, sea, air, extra-terrestrial
2. Communications
3. Manufacturing
4. Food Production
5. Measurement of Time and Space
6. Navigation
7. Public Health
8. Warfare/Military Technologies
9. Consumer Goods and Public Amenities
10. Education/Information Gathering and Dissemination
11. Synthetics- plastic, nylon, polyurethane etc.
12. Management and Processing of Information
13. Sexuality and Gender Relations
14. Energy-Generating, illumination
15. Marketing/Retailing
16. Image-making: photography, cinematography.
17. Biography-Individual Inventors (Tesla, Marconi, Dunlop, Goodyear, Watts,
Oppenheimer, Bell, Fuller, Wright Brothers, Morse, Maxim, Nobel, Pouzin,
Zuckerberg etc. etc?)
Each seminar participant will write two short papers and give two brief oral
presentations based on their research projects. Dates will be set for individual
presentations. You will be expected to make full use of library print resources as
well as on-line information electronically gleaned.
Evaluation and Grading:
12-page Research Paper: Invention (20%)
12-page Research Paper: Innovations and Conclusion (25%)
15-minute Oral Presentation of first paper (10%)
20-minute Oral Presentation of second paper (20%)
Overall Class Participation/Discussion of assigned readings: (25%)
Special Note: Students are expected to attend all weekly class meetings.
Unexcused absence from more than one class could incur a grade penalty.
Students are also expected to consult with Professor Hull at least once during
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office hours or at one of the scheduled informal consultations. In writing
papers students should take care to avoid plagiarism. The latter can carry a
heavy penalty in the college.
Required Readings:
Daniel R. Headrick. Technology: A World history.
Thomas P. Hughes. Human-Built World: How to Think About Technology and
Culture.
David Edgerton. The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since
1900.
Tom Standage. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph
and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers.
John H. Lienhard. How Invention Begins.
Michael Hamilton Morgan. Lost Heritage: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim
Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists.
Select Bibliography
Michael Adas. Machines as the Measure of Men.
Michael Adas. Dominance By Design: Technological Imperatives and
America’s Civilizing Mission.
Isaac Asimov. Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.
Isaac Asimov. I, Robot.R. Baker. New and Improved: Inventors and Inventions
that have changed the Modern World.
Adam Barrows. The Cosmic Time of Empire.
George Basalla. The Evolution of Technology.
Nicholas A. Basbanes. On Paper: The Everything of its Two Thosdand Year
History.
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Daniel Boorstin. The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know his
World and Himself.
Robert V. Bruce. Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude.
Bernard Carlson. Tesla.
W. Bernard Carlson. (ed) Technology in World history. (7 vols)
Donald Cardwell. The Norton History of Technology.
James Burke. Connections.
Kenneth Chase. Firearms: A Global History to 1700.
S. Terry Childs (ed) Society, Culture, and Technology in Africa.
C.J. Chivers. The Gun.
Carlo Cipolla. Guns and Sails.
Theresa M. Collins & Lisa Gitelman. Thomas Edison and Modern America: A
Brief History with Documents.
Paul Conkin. A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of
American Agriculture.
Tom D. Crouch. The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright.
Rodney Dale. Timekeeping.
Robert Darnton. The Case for Books: Past, Present, Future.
John Delmonte. Origins of Materials and Processes.
Jared Diamond. Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Edward Dolnick. The Clockwork universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society,
and the Birth of the Modern World.
Susan J. Douglas. Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922.
Eric Drexler. Radical Abundance (on nanotechnology)
John Ellis. The Social history of the Machine Gun.
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Stephen Fenichell. Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic century.
Ernest Freeberg. The Age of Edison.
Robert D. Friedel. Pioneer Plastic.
Robert Gardiner. (ed) Conway’s history of the Ship.
Leonard DeGraaf. Edison and the Rise of Innovation.
Michael E. Gorman (ed) Alexander Graham Bell.
Ahmad Y. al-Hassan. Islamic Technology.
Salim T.S. (ed) 1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World.
Jim al-Khalili. The house of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient
Knowledge and Gave us the Renaissance.
Daniel R. Headrick. The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the
Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940.
Daniel R. Headrick. Tools of empire: Technology and European Impetialism
in the nineteenth Century.
John F. Healey. The Early Alphabet.
Michael Hodges. AK-47: A History.
B. Gille. The History of Techniques. (vols 1,2)
Jeffrey A. Harris. Transformative Entrepreneurs: How Walt Disney, Steve
Jobs, Muhammad Yunus and other Innovators Succeeded.
John M. Hobson. The Eastern Origins of Western civilization.
J.T. Hooker. Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the
Alphabet.
Samantha Hunt. The Invention of Everything Else. (on Tesla).Walter
Isaacson. Steve Jobs.
Peter James & Nick Thorpe. Ancient Inventions.
Julia Keller. Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel.
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David Kinkela. DDT and the amefrican Century.
Friedrich Klemm. A history of Western Technology.
Tom Lewis. Empire of the Air: The Men who made Radio.
Donald F. Lach. Asia in the Making of Europe. (vol. II)
John H. Lienhard. How Invention Begins: Echoes of old Voices in the Rise of
New Machines.
Samuel L. Macey. The Dynamics of Progress, Time, Method, and Measure.
Ben Marsden. & Crosbie Smith (eds) Engineering Empires.
Hiram Maxim. My life.
Steven D. Lubar. InfoCulture: The Smithsonian Book of Information age
Inventions.
Viktor Mayer, Big Data: A Revolution that will transform how we live, work,
and Think.
W.H. McNeill. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society.
McDavid Sobel. Longitude.
Jeffrey L. Meikle. American Plastic: A Cultural History.
Joel Mokyr. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic
Progress.
Ray Monk. Robert Oppenheimer.
Michel Morgan. Lost history: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists,
Thinkers, and Artists..
Robert M. Neer. Napalm.
Arnold Pacey. The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development
of Technology.
Arnold Pacey. Technology in Word Civilization.
Robert Raymond. Out of the Fiery Furnace: The Impact of Metals on the
History of Mankind.
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Terry S. Reynolds. Stronger than a hundred Men: A History of the Vertical
Water Wheel.
Richard Rhodes. The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
William Rosen. The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam
Industry and Invention.
E. Singer, Holmyard, E.J. Hall (eds) A History of Technology.
Paul J. Staiti. Samuel Finley Breese Morse.
Marc Seifer. Wizard: Life Times of Nikola Tesla.
David Sobel. Longitude.
Sigvard Strandh. The History of the Machine..
Elaine Tyler May. America and the Pill.
Robert Temple. The Genius of China.
Trevor I. Williams. A History of Invention.: From Stone Axes to Silicon Chips.
Christian Wolmar. Bllod, Iron, and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the
World.
Roger Watson. Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography.
Joshua D. Wolff. Western Union and the Creation of the American Corporate
Order.
Organization of the Course
January
30: Introduction: Inventions, Innovations I.
Assign: Headrick. Chapters 1-4.
February
6: Inventors, Inventors, Inventions, Innovations II.
Assign: Headrick. Chapters 5-8.
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10-minute individual informal conference in Professor Hull’s
office.
13: Inventors, Inventions, Innovations III.
Discuss Headrick book.
Assign: Edgerton. Intro+chapters 1-3 .
10-minute individual informal conference in professor’s office.
Due: Paper Topic on Invention (first and second choice)
20: Meeting with Reference Librarians.
Assign: Research on Paper Topics
27: Technology Transfers and Bricollage.
Due: Bibliography
Assign: Edgerton. Chapters 4-7.
Film- ‘Connections’ series .
March:
6: Oral Presentations.
Assign: Edgerton. Chapters 8+conclusion
Film-‘Connections’ series 5/6
13: Oral Presentations
Discuss Edgerton book
Assign: Hughes. Chapters 1-3.
20: Spring break. No class.
Assign: Hughes. Chapters 4-6.
27: Oral Presentations
Assign: Freeberg. First three chapters
Discuss Hughes book.
April:
3: Oral Presentations
Assign: Remainder of book on Edison.
First essay due today!
10: Oral Presentations
Discuss Edison.
Assign: Standage.
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17: Oral Presentations
Discuss Standage.
Assign: tba.
24: Oral Presentations
Discuss assigned book.
Assign: tba.
May:
1: Oral Presentations
Discuss assigned book
8: Inventors, Inventions, Innovations: What’s the Future?
Second Essay due today!
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