The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900

The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900. By David Edgerton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. xviii + 270 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, notes, index. Cloth, $26.00. ISBN: 0-195-32283-5.

Reviewed by David Hochfelder

"Much of what is written on the history of technology is for boys of all ages. This book is a history for grown-ups of all genders." Thus David Edgerton begins his provocative book. He seeks to correct what he regards as the dominant emphasis in the field, a focus on novelty. He argues that historians have too closely linked technology with the terms "invention," "innovation," and "diffusion," and that we have failed to create a "use-based" global history of technology. Noting that most of the world's population is "poor, non-white, and female," he identifies "creole technologies," or older small-scale technologies (what others might call "appropriate technologies"), that are adapted if not designed for local use (pp. ix-xiv).

In Edgerton's view, historians have taken for granted the significance of some technologies...