Leonardo to the Internet

Now updated ¿ A comprehensive, 500-year history of technology in society.

Historian Thomas J. Misa''s sweeping history of the relationship between technology and society over the past 500 years reveals how technological innovations have shaped¿and have been shaped by¿the cultures in which they arose. Spanning the preindustrial past, the age of scientific, political, and industrial revolutions, as well as the more recent eras of imperialism, modernism, and global security, this compelling work evaluates what Misa calls "the question of technology."

In this edition, Misa brings his acclaimed text up to date by drawing on current scholarship while retaining sharply drawn portraits of individual people, artifacts, and systems. Each chapter has been honed to relate to contemporary concerns. Globalization, Misa argues, looks differently considering today''s virulent nationalism, cultural chauvinism, and trade wars. A new chapter focuses on the digital age from 1990 to 2