released 6/2/2023

In over a dozen books, cultural historian David E. Nye has documented and analyzed the ways in which technologies have shaped American society and the imaginations of its members. His books include American Technological Sublime (1994), Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture (1997), and America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings (2003). In 1999, he talked with Ken Myers about his book Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies (1998). Nye rejects the idea of technological determinism, the idea that certain technologies render inevitable certain social outcomes. He insists that societies do have choices about how they use technologies, but that once choices are made and established both politically and economically, a definite momentum is established.

19 minutes

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