Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs: America's Debate over Technological Unemployment, 1929-1981 - Couverture rigide

Bix, Amy Sue

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0801862442 ISBN 13 : 9780801862441

Editeur : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Americans today often associate scientific and technological change with progress and personal well-being, yet underneath this confident assumptions lie serious questions. In this work, Amy Sue Bix locates the origins of this confusion in the Great Depression, when social and economic crisis forced many Americans to re-examine ideas about science, technology, and progress. Growing fear of "technological unemployment" - the idea that increasing mechanization displaced human workers - prompted widespread talk about the meaning of progress in the new Machine Age. In response, promoters of technology mounted a powerful public relations campaign: in advertising, writings, speeches and World Fair exhibits, company leaders and prominent scientists and engineers insisted that mechanization ultimately would ensure American happiness and national success. Emphasizing the cultural context of the debate, Bix concentrates on public perceptions of work and technological change: the debate over mechanization turned on ideology, on the way various observers in the 1930s interpreted the relationship between technology and American progress. Although similar concerns arose in other countries, Bix highlights what was unique about the American response. In her concluding chapters and epilogue, she shows how the issue changed during World War II and in post-war America, and brings the debate forward to show its relevance to modern readers.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Amy Sue Bix is an associate professor of history at Iowa State University.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Date d'édition: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0801862442
• ISBN 13: 9780801862441
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 392
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible