Volume 1. Colonial America to 1865 -- volume 2. Reconstruction through World War II -- volume 3. The Cold War to the present.

From the invention of eyeglasses to the Internet, this three-volume set examines the pivotal effects of inventions on society, providing a fascinating history of technology and innovations in the United States from the earliest European colonization to the present. Technical Innovation in American History surveys the history of technology, documenting the chronological and thematic connections between specific inventions, technological systems, individuals, and events that have contributed to the history of science and technology in the United States. Covering eras from colonial times to the present day in three chronological volumes, the entries include innovations in fields such as architecture, civil engineering, transportation, energy, mining and oil industries, chemical industries, electronics, computer and information technology, communications (television, radio, and print), agriculture and food technology, and military technology. The A–Z entries address key individuals, events, organizations, and legislation related to themes such as industry, consumer and medical technology, military technology, computer technology, and space science, among others, enabling readers to understand how specific inventions, technological systems, individuals, and events influenced the history, cultural development, and even self-identity of the United States and its people. The information also spotlights how American culture, the U.S. government, and American society have specifically influenced technological development.

From the medieval farm implements used by the first colonists to the invisible links of the Internet, the history of technology in America is a history of society as well. This title analyzes technology's impact on the lives of women and men. It also discusses the innovation of an American system of manufactures.

Because of its strong agrarian roots, the South has typically been viewed as a region not favorably disposed to innovation and technology. Yet innovation was never absent from industrialization in this part of the United States. From the early nineteenth century onward, southerners were as eager as other Americans to embrace technology as a path to modernity. This volume features seven essays that range widely across the region and its history, from the antebellum era to the present, to assess the role of innovations presumed lacking by most historians. Offering a challenging interpretation of industrialization in the South, these writings show that the benefits of innovations had to be carefully weighed against the costs to both industry and society. The essays consider a wide range of innovative technologies. Some examine specific industries in subregions: steamboats in the lower Mississippi valley, textile manufacturing in Georgia and Arkansas, coal mining in Virginia, and sugar planting and processing in Louisiana. Others consider the role of technology in South Carolina textile mills around the turn of the twentieth century, the electrification of the Tennessee valley, and telemedicine in contemporary Arizona--marking the expansion of the region into the southwestern Sunbelt. Together, these articles show that southerners set significant limitations on what technological innovations they were willing to adopt, particularly in a milieu where slaveholding agriculture had shaped the allocation of resources. They also reveal how scarcity of capital and continued reliance on agriculture influenced that allocation into the twentieth century, relieved eventually by federal spending during the Depression and its aftermath that sparked the Sunbelt South's economic boom. Technology, Innovation, and Southern Industrialization clearly demonstrates that the South's embrace of technological innovation in the modern era doesn't mark a radical change from the past but rather signals that such pursuits were always part of the region's economy. It deflates the myth of southern agrarianism while expanding the scope of antebellum American industrialization beyond the Northeast and offers new insights into the relationship of southern economic history to the region's society and politics.

This is a collection of essays focusing on the spread and elaboration of American technology, and on the men and women who shaped it. Beginning with technology of America's Wooden Age, the authors discuss Jefferson's perception of the role of technology in a democratic society; the American System of Manufactures of Eli Whitney and others; Thomas P. Jones and the institutionalization of industrialization in educational reforms; McCormick and the spread of industrialization to agriculture; and James Eads and the rise of transportation networks. ISBN 0-262-66049-0 (pbk.): $9.95.

Despite having undergone major advances in recent years, the history of technology in Latin America is still an understudied topic. This is the first English-language volume to bring together a variety of critical perspectives on the history of technology in Latin America from the early-19th century through to the present day. This special issue, assembled by guest editor David Pretel, brings together a range of experts to explore a plethora of topics in Latin America's technological history. Papers include a study of rural telephony in in 20th-century Latin America; the rise of the 'Techno-class' in modern Brazil; an analysis of the rise and fall of three Caribbean commodities; the history of educational technology in Latin America, and science and technology in Cold War Chile. Special Issue: Technology in Latin American History Edited by David Pretel (Colegio de Mexico, Mexico) and Helge Wendt (Max Plank Institute for the History of Science, Germany)